Original Twist
by IWfan53
Summary: AU: How much does what you are define who you are? What would life be like for the Fantastic Four if they received different superpowers after being bombarded with cosmic rays? A Susan/Reed of sorts...
1. Chapter 1

Original Twist

AN: This particular story uses What If Volume 1 Issue #6 as its inspiration, but I consider it to take place in a universe of my own creation, so I will play hard and lose with Marvel continuity (even alternate reality continuity) as it pleases me. I will not directly say what year it takes place in at any point in the story, but to help you get a general idea, you may assume that this story starts in (prepare for irony) 2004.

Chapter one, Changes: In which Reed Richards loses everything except what matters to him most.

After taking care of a base need (and a few sanitary ones afterwards) Reed Richards returned to the bedroom that he and his, for lack of a more scientific term, girlfriend Susan Storm shared. Though she'd been asleep when last he laid eyes on her, while Reed had been busy she had woken up, and gotten dressed. A wide and lazy smile dwelt upon her face as she sat cross legged on the bed they shared. "We're gonna waste a lot of time today."

Reed's eyebrows immediately arched upwards. Among other couples given her position and attire such words might have been a request to join her on the bed for another round of lovemaking, but Reed knew better. What he didn't know was why Susan had waited until today to tell him that she thought his plan for the first civilian designed, funded, and piloted flight to the moon wasn't a good idea.

During the period of time (Reed profoundly hoped that it was less than a year because if it wasn't he'd forgotten all about having an anniversary celebration of having spent 365 days -- give or take a February 29th -- in one another's company) they'd gotten used to understanding one another's body language and Susan realizing he was perplexed gave him an answer before he could even ask the question. "I can only speak for myself of course, but I went to the moon and back at least three times last night."

Reed blushed, there were certain ares where he considered himself if not exactly unmatched, at least among the very best. Most hard sciences for example, he was a genius after all, but saddly there were things in life (regardless of what the Karma Sutra had to say) you couldn't learn in books, and at times he wondered just how much was his actual skill and just how much was Susan giving him extra points for effort.

The difference in their ages didn't exactly work in his favor after all, Susan was twenty-six, while he was at thirty-four only just barely nearer to thirty than forty. Then of course there was the difference in their bodies, Reed had always cared more about exercising his mind than worrying about the particular vehicle which housed it.

He was the taller of the two at 5'9 with brown eyes, and brown hair that was starting to go prematurely grey. In short the best thing that could be said about him physically was that he wasn't noticeably overweight or out of shape, which was probably something of a miracle given how he'd spent many a late night working on some particular project eating whatever was within easy reach.

Susan on the other hand was unimpressive where height was concerned, being only 5'6, but that the only thing about her body which wasn't fantastic in one way or another. She had almost golden (or maybe that was just Reed's imagination playing tricks with him) blonde hair that she wore in curls, and bright blue eyes.

While various colleges had been more or less trampling over one another to give him a chance to enrol by his sixteenth birthday, because he was (and could say so without feeling overly egotistical, it was only the truth after all) a genius, Susan hadn't been so lucky.

Not that she was foolish, Reed wouldn't have been able to stand being in a relationship with a woman who couldn't at least make a decent showing of keeping up with him mentally, but Susan seemed to have more knowledge when it came to reading people than reading books.

Of course this was probably in part due to the fact after the death of her mother her father had gambled away most of their family's money she probably wouldn't have ever been able to go to college if it wasn't for three things: the first was that she had a kindly aunt who was reasonably well-off financially, the second was that Reed had seen a few (only a handful of them at most but such events did exist) times when her sheer determination towards a certain goal had left even him feeling slackjawed thus leaving him with no doubts that if she wasn't as gifted as he was mentally, she'd tried harder regardless of how much she achieved, and the third was that she'd been an excellent swimmer which allowed her to obtain a fairly generous scholarship. Susan had swum throughout her college years and still found time to do it now and again after her graduation.

If Reed truly focused, he could bring himself to think that Susan had an aesthetically pleasing body when viewed through the lens of his society's current standards of beauty. But as she bounced from the bed with a smile on her face Reed's higher level thought processes were momentarily put on hold and he was forced to rely on more robust and primitive means of framing his thought processes: Susan Storm Hot!

Having reached that particular conclusion his mind now offered all sorts of helpful ways to expand upon it, for example she was so hot that Reed should have taken pictures of them together and mailed copies of it to every single person who he hadn't liked growing up just so that they could see what a kind of proverbial hot cheerleader digs nerd geek relationship he'd more or less stumbled head first into by sheer luck, or that she was so hot Reed should go down on his knees and thank Thomas, Nikola, Albert, and all the rest that even consider being a relationship with him.

It probably helped that he was rich, and it wasn't inherited either, straight out of college Reed had basically done nothing but invent and file patents for his various inventions. Of course he didn't care _that_ much about the money, so long as it was enough to keep his laboratory stocked with whatever tools he wanted that was enough. Some poets said that they did art for the sake of art, Reed Richards did science chiefly for the sake of science.

Ideas seemed to spontaneously breed in his mind and would not go away until he'd forced them to by fully examining said ideas from every possible angle. There were times when he worried that if for some reason he wasn't able to keep inventing things then all the ideas he wasn't attending to would pile up in the corners of his mind and drive him mad.

"So do you want for breakfast?" Susan's hug caused the fifty different trains running every which way in his mind to all slam into each other creaking an astounding pile of debris which left him barely able to produce a single coherent word. "Toast."

"It'll be waiting for you when you finally get downstairs." Then she kissed him on the cheek. At which point a fifty-first train, angry that it had missed all the fun, slammed head long into the wreckage of the other fifty.

After having a mind that worked like clockwork for the better part of three decades, there were moments when Reed wondered why exactly he'd thought actively inviting hormones into that delicate equation would be a good idea. Sadly such thoughts were the equivalent of locking the barn door and waving a polite goodbye to the horse thieves who were making off with your four-legged former property. It was too late to do anything about it. Those particular lunatics were running the asylum and had been doing so for at least two months now.

There was only one thing left to do: politely acquiesce to their demands however insane. Helen of Troy had a face which had launched a thousand ships. Susan Storm's face was only going to launch one, but it was going to launch it from the earth to the moon.

He wondered which was the greater distance, the one traveled by those ships powered by rudimentary sails multiplied by the thousand of them that travelled it, or the distance his one ship propelled by powerful rockets was going to travel. Figuring out the answer would make an amusing diversion if nothing else.

But before he could consider checking the relevant data to solve that problem, there was another piece of datum much closer to home to check first. He opened up his sock drawer, and removed about half a dozen pairs about until he found the box he'd buried beneath them. It fit easily in the palm of his hand and Reed carefully opened it, taking a moment to marvel at the shimmering diamond ring within. Then he closed the box and returned it to the sock drawer after covering it once again with the socks he had previously removed. A true scientist prepared for every foreseeable possibility.

--

Susan allowed herself a satisfied smile as she descended down the stairs towards the first floor of Reed's house, in her joy creating a racket that her rambunctious brother Johnny would have been proud of in the process. But then she'd had a number of reasons to be happy. Reed Richards was indisputably at the top of that list for various reasons.

She felt a certain amount of chagrin of course because Reed could truthfully be described as both "loaded" and "older man" but by the same token, an eight-year difference in their ages wouldn't be all that noticeable a few decades down the line. As for the money, it was the money, there was simply no equivocation possible.

Susan would have loved Reed, either way, but there was something rather wonderful about the concept of being financially secure. About being able to just sign checks, swipe credit cards, and hand over hundred dollar bills without batting an eyelash. She'd lost the naive belief that money grew on trees shortly after her father, and marrying Reed wouldn't bring it back, but she would be able to act like she was blissfully ignorant of the fact. Not that she intended to: Susan had spent too much time being practical with money to make plans about squandering it, but still...

It'd been a task and a half to find a way to pay her own tuition, getting her brother through college was proving to be at least three or four tasks worth of work. Mainly that was because Johnny had wanted to just go to some dinky two-year trade school before becoming a mechanic, and while Susan couldn't actively force her brother to pick a more dignified career she could damn sure see to it that he was thoroughly over-qualified for the one he wanted, and (thanks to the fact that Johnny had gotten plenty of experience realizing why he didn't want to argue with sister when she put her foot down) he was now just two semesters away from pulling that particular task off.

She'd make sure he finished them, not the least because money was a little looser now that Reed was paying for her room and board. Susan shook her head as she took a moment to get to work on preparing breakfast. Once she'd gotten all the necessary mechanical parts working towards producing a meal she went back to thinking about the future.

Today was the day. Susan took a moment to ponder just what that would mean. She'd be the first woman to set foot on the moon, if nothing else that'd probably be worth a good for at least fifteen minutes of fame. If she played her cards right, she might be able to leverage those fifteen minutes into doing a great deal longer period of time with any luck. Becoming a defacto celebrity would probably give her acting career (which was mostly theoretical at the moment) a shot in the arm.

She should probably write a book at some point if she really wanted to try and wring every single drop of blood she could from that particular turnip. A smile came to her lips at that moment every bit as as easily as the title to that particular work in the fields of exploitation came to mind. "How I cooked breakfast for the smartest man in the world: the Susan Storm story."

It'd be true enough all things considered, since her 'pet' scientist had definitely improved his diet after Susan had moved in and provided him with the first daily contact with members of his own species on a daily basis. It wasn't that he was a bad cook, a horrible cook, or even an atrocious cook, the problem was that Reed Richards was a ridiculously good chemist and sooner later any culinary attempt he made turned into a laboratory project. The end results of which were pretty darn predictable, to pick one sterling example, he'd seemed unduly pleased with himself the time that he'd actually found a way to light a pot of water on fire while trying to bring it to boil just by adding a few special 'ingredients' along the way.

So she left him alone in the lab, and he left her alone in the kitchen, as cliche as it sounded, they made it work. If nothing else, the last few months of her life had certainly been 'interesting' in the sense of she'd gotten to understand why it seemed so like so many famous authors, scientists, and mathematicians were known for their aberrant personalties as their various creations.

Luckily the close to two decades she'd spent playing mother to her younger brother Johnny had in turn left her quite well prepared for being a relationship with a genius who one day doubtlessly would come up with a brilliant idea in the middle of a bath, shout "Eureka" because he felt it would be appropriate, then jump out to try and run for his lab.

He would only 'try' of course because he had a tiled bathroom floor and would probably fall before he got five steps from the tub, hopefully only not breaking his skull in the process. At which point it would be her job to call 911 and listen to the brilliant idea (possibly even going so far as to write it down with ye olde pencil and pad of paper like a good little secretary) so that Reed's jaw could properly wired shut to prevent him from driving the hospital staff mad by attempting to diagnose (and possibly even operate on) himself.

At least it somehow seemed less exasperating then when her brother acted like an idiot, probably in part because with Reed it was case of him being so smart that he went around the proverbial bend and started acting foolish in entirely new ways. The other part to that equation was that because they weren't related by blood, she didn't have to be doing this, she did it because she wanted to.

For some reason do something "because she wanted to" had always been a very attractive proposition to Susan, but that in turn was probably due to the fact that it was such a rare event in her life.

--

After the two had their meal they drove off to the launch pad that Reed had put many hours of work into by means of mass ammounts of paperwork and money. As Susan drummed her hands on the car's dashboard she couldn't help but contemplate the dichotomy between the vehicle and its owner.

Since he wasn't exactly constrained by finances, someone who was meeting Reed Richards for the first time would probably expect him to drive something eye-catching, something sleek and scientific-looking, equipped with all the latest doodads and whatchamacalits and with extra special thingamabobs.

As her eyes came to rest on the car's tape deck, Susan enjoyed a chuckle at that proverbial person's foolishness. Reed invested for the long haul, she hadn't asked but Susan thought it was a safe bet that he'd bought this car after graduating college (or possibly shortly after he'd turned 18) and because of the fact that he hadn't put much stress on it (he flew to all the important scientific conferences he went to and that made up about half the time he'd ever left his house after graduating) it had never broken down, thus he'd never bought a new one.

It had four metal seats covered by some material that acted as a cushion, it had a steering wheel, it had four windows, it had four doors, it had four wheels, it had one tire on each of those wheels, it had a trunk, it had air-conditioning, it had one internal combustion engine, it had an internalized clock, radio, and said cassette tape player all within reach of the driver. To describe it beyond those components would have been overselling the vehicle.

Besides, she'd come to realize that the semi-dilapidated state of Reed's favorite mode of conveyance was a good thing where Susan Storm's future was concerned. If Reed Richards could stick with such a machine just because it'd been loyal to him, then in turn would suggest that he'd feel the same way about people, like his wife.

Of course a car wasn't a person, but it was all she had to go on since Susan couldn't just out and out ask Reed if he planed to dump her the moment that some younger better-looking woman came along. "Penny for your thoughts?"

Never had there been a more inopportune usage of that particular phrase then that one, it made Susan want to reach her arms back through time, wrap them around whoever had come up with the annoying saying and strangle them, slowly. "Because its smaller then the Earth and subsequently there's less gravity I'll weigh less on the moon right? Too bad it can't decrease my dress size also."

It might have worked if she hadn't been dealing with a genius. As it was, Reed just flashed one of those "checkmate in fifteen moves" smiles that reminded everyone around him he was the smartest man in the room, not that he was trying to rub it in, it was just an indisputable fact. "That wasn't what you were thinking."

Even though he was behind the wheel, they were currently cruising down a dirt road so Susan didn't worry that the light shove she gave Reed's shoulders at this point would her to finally discover whether or not their current mode of transportation possessed airbags. "Great, so now you can read my mind. I see you've gone right past brilliant and head fist into psychic apparently.

All right then, if you can read my mind why don't you save my lips and lungs the effort and hold both sides of the conversation yourself?" Reed took her gentle teasing in stride. "I'm not that smart. It was simple pattern recognition. I know the look you get on your face when you're thinking about feminine matters and you had a different look on your face before I asked."

Susan just harrumphed and then sighed submitting (as was customary) to the all knowing mind of Reed Richards. "All right fine, I was thinking about me and you, and where this is going, and before you say anything I don't mean to the moon." Reed took a hand of the wheel to scratch his chin. "I take it you're referring to our relationship as opposed to our rocketship?"

He made the two sound enough alike that Susan was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt humorwise. "Yeah. The way I'm currently seeing things: we go up, come back down, lots of cheering crowds, hands get shaken, more money gets made, you put a ring on my finger, I jump and down with joy, and if you let me know in advance I promise to 'forget' to put on a bra that day, be the stereotypical blonde trophy wife who'll try not to lose her figure as she provides you with some genius brats who'll probably be winning logical arguments with me before they go through puberty.

But I think the fact that I'll be able to go swimming through piles of your money will probably do something to lessen that particular sting." Susan herself wasn't quite sure how much of that was serious and how much of that was a joke. But what she did know was that something in her speech sparked something within Reed, for he returned the hand that had scratched his chin to the wheel, took his other one off of it, and placed it about as close as he could get to her thigh.

"Well if its any consolation, I think you'll look good pregnant." Of course Reed hadn't descended to the age old cliche about 'birthing hips' he'd just let his hands do the talking, not that Susan was about to tell him to put said hand back on the wheel. "You know I think you telling me that that I'd 'look good pregnant' is about the most blatant down-to-earth sexual come-on I've ever managed to wring from your lips.

Most of the time I feel like you're going to wheel out a slide projector and charts to show just how exactly your..." "Corpus cavernosum." "Is going to get inserted into my.." "Fibromuscular tubular tract." "And it isn't weird at all that you can finish that sentence."

Reed shrugged and put both hands back on the wheel. "Any standard medical doctor worth his salt would have been able to as well." Susan leaned back, though since Reed's car did not possess a sunroof the view wasn't all that spectacular. "Only if they'd wanted to.

That's what really sets you apart, it's not that you know so much, it's just that you keep spouting it off on every subject every time you possibly can. You should consider yourself lucky that I find it charming. I'm flexible like that, I really don't care if you want to use more Latin in our daily conversations than you're likely to hear anywhere else this side of a graveyard."

The "dead" language "joke" fell flat but Susan hadn't particularly expected to get a laugh out of Reed with it. Instead (as he was prone to) he changed the subject. "We're making history today. Rather makes you wonder about what other people in places to similar to ours have said, like the Wright Brothers preparing to proved that they'd invented the world's first flying machine that lived up to the name."

In turn as she was prone to, rather than try to match him thought for thought Susan took the easy way out. "Probably something along the lines of 'hey Wilbur aren't you glad we decided to sell that bike shop and do something meaningful with our lives, oh and you can have the first flight, no need to thank me for letting you have first shot at the glory.'" "Orville actually took the first flight." Susan threw up her hands in mock frustration. "You'd drive a lesser woman insane Reed Richards, you really would."

--

"And finally here comes the big-brained professor himself!" Reed blushed as he brought his car to a complete halt (given that they were more or less in the middle of nowhere any patch of dirt could be considered a reasonable parking space) and got out. "Sorry about being late Ben, when we got in I noticed the tank was only a quarter full so I went out of our way slightly to refuel it."

No one who met Benjamin Grimm and Reed Richards separately would have suspected the two of being friends, let alone college roommates. Ben was just about everything Reed wasn't, he was two years older than Reed, but he looked to be the younger of the two since he kept himself in much better shape.

He'd gotten into college with the help of a football scholarship but Reed had found that he had a fair amount of brains to go with his brawn, and more important Ben was in possession of a considerable amount of sheer bloody-mindedness that seemed to keep cropping up in the people that Reed knew well, possibly because anyone who didn't have it tended to fade to the back of his mind while he worked on certain scientific matters.

Ben had blue eyes, and his hair was still all brown. After majoring in engineering he'd gone on to join the Air Force and after he'd served his tour of duty he'd come back home for various reasons. One of which had been seeing how Reed had been doing, which had been if not exactly bad hadn't been all that wonderful either.

Someone with a puerile sense of humor would have found the concept of an all-around tough guy like Ben playing matchmaker out-and-out hilarious, but Reed was smart enough to know (and humble enough to admit) that Ben had more or less played midwife to his and Susan's relationship. Without his guiding hands said relationship would probably have ended up stillborn among the numerous monosyllabic sounds of awkwardness exchanged between the two during their first few meetings when Susan had been deeply afraid of appering too foolish and Reed had been just as afraid of frightening her off by appearing too smart.

But it'd all worked out in the end, and so now Reed was repaying Ben for a lifetime of loyal friendship that he hadn't done anything in particular to deserve by giving him a chance to serve as the pilot to their little expodition. Ben had of course jumped at the chance, even if he frequently insisted on seeming to be every bit as dour as his last name would suggest.

"Well glad to know you weren't getting cold feet then. Normally I wouldn't exactly complain, what with it being your rocket after all, but I could only take so much of Junior pestering me to talk to him about every single plane I ever flew."

"The name is Johnny!"

Susan's younger brother Jonathan "Johnny" Storm had blond hair and blue eyes like his older sister, but sadly any attempts he was going to make at look tall and imposing next to Ben were about as likely to succeed as your average dog's attempts to look imposing next to your average wolf. Ben was both taller and more broad of shoulder, not to mention Johnny was noticeably short of tooth compared to the taller man.

After finding out about how Reed had offered to allow Susan a seat on this particular expedition Johnny had begged, pleaded, and otherwise cajoled the three older members of the expedition into believing that it would be more work to keep telling him that he couldn't come then it would be allow him join them.

The two brown-haired men shook hands, and then Reed turned toward the rocket. "If you want to back out now, you still can." Ben chuckled and shook his head. "Yeah right, Aunt Petunia's favorite nephew ain't exactly about to leave you in the lurch at a time like this. I mean how much money did you have to pay to buy us a window of cleared airspace for us to put this little field trip in motion?"

Reed shook his head, preferring not to think about the exact figures. He'd spent enough to accomplish a goal, that was that mattered. Ben saw the look in Reed's eyes and just nodded slowly. "Well anyway, I trust you checked the weather reports and made sure everything is going to be clear from here to the moon and back?"

Reed nodded as he slowly walked towards the rocket that he'd spent much of the last of few months of his life designing and then either working on himself or paying people to build. "Takeoff conditions down here are ideal as you can clearly see. As for in space, well such things are harder to measure, and there seem to be some unusual strong cosmic ray fluctuations out there but I'm sure the ship's shielding can handle it."

Ben made some kind of noncomittal noise indicating that he wasn't going directly disagree with Reed in matters of science, but at the same time he wasn't exactly thrilled by what he'd just heard. "Come on Ben, if we don't do it today then not only will Reed have wasted a lot of money but we'll probably have to wait months till we can permission for another shot at it."

Ben looked up into the sky and sighed. "Well not like I'm gonna say no to a lady, besides if nothing else I can always find a certain amount of solace from the fact that today's June sixteenth. About two weeks ago everybody celebrates another undertaking whose commanders decided that when presented with a choice between going ahead under less than ideal conditions, or delaying until ideal conditions, they'd make the best of what they had to work with. Let's get suited up."

--

The process of getting suited up was a fairly simple one, the spacesuits they were wearing could be put on without help (probably a good thing considering that it was just the four of them out there, so there obviously weren't any handy female assistants around to provide Susan with help if she'd needed it) and underneath the spacesuits they were all wearing simple purple jumpsuits that covered them from neck to foot.

Getting to their seats was tricky but doable, so before noon they were all strapped in and ready to make history. "Well if anyone's gonna get cold feet now is your last chance to get off without doing it into the vacuum of space."

No one said anything, they had all been preparing for this too hard to think about turning their backs on it now, so after making sure the crew was ready Ben began to flip switches slowly. "All right then. Let's do this thing and come home just like any other mission." He flipped the last switch and then conversation became impossible as all of them were pressed back firmly into their seats and the sound of rockets bursting to life completely filled their ears.

--

They had been in outer space for about an hour when it happened. All of a sudden the entire shuttle was bathed in some kind of red light and warning signals began going off. "Reed old buddy whatever the hell is going wrong, you better have some way to fix it, because we can't exactly just pull a lever and ride our ejector seats back to safety!"

Reed's fingers began to dance across the keyboard in front of him. "No, this isn't possible. The level of cosmic radiation, it's increased exponentially, it's never been this high before not even close..."

The entire ship began to shake slightly and Ben tightened his grip on the controls. "Let me guess. The guy who fell asleep at the wheel said the same thing about the iceberg that hit the Titanic!"

Even in the face of dire peril Reed Richards wasn't about to let a incorrect metaphor escape him.. "Not even remotely close to the same thing. The iceberg that struck the Titanic was hardly of record-breaking size! This on the other hand..."

Ben cut him off before he could go any further. "You better not be about to say it's a 'once in a lifetime event' because at the moment it's starting to feel like that might wind up being true in all kinds of unpleasant ways..."

Reed looked at his screen and then back at Susan. "We've got to ride it out Ben, if we try and turn it'll only get worse. Ben nodded and his vision narrowed as he looked straight ahead. "Great, nobody on earth managed to ever shoot me down so now I gotta deal with interstellar flak..."

After about ten seconds the warning sirens died but the red light still gave the ship's entire an unearthly glow painting everything crimson. Reed couldn't do anything but sit there and watch as the ships shields were battered by the seemingly endless barrage of cosmic rays, and then the inevitable happened as the rays began to penetrate the interior of the ship itself.

"Wooahh... what's going on I feel like I'm getting goosebumps all over my body..." Reed shared that particular feeling as well. "It's the cosmic rays Johnny, they're invisible to the naked eye, but they're still capable of damaging the ship's systems..."

It was at this point that Susan's younger brother asked a question which while entirely appropriate given their situation, was also a question Reed would rather not have answered. "What about us?"

Reed felt himself starting to develop a migraine. "Can't be sure... no human has ever been exposed... to such large amounts... of cosmic radiation. Our suits will provide... some protection... but probably not enough... Could be nothing... could cause cancer... could be something... that no one... has ever seen before. Won't know for sure... till we get back... to my lab..."

"You mean if we get back... to your lab." "Johnny if my arms... were a little longer... and weren't strapped to this... seat I'd slap.. you for that." Johnny turned his head slightly and behind his helmet stuck his tongue out at his sister. "Well they aren't... and you are... so what... are you going to do about... it?"

Before Susan could come up with an answer, all of a sudden the red lights went out, the ship stopped shaking, and the unnatural feelings racing up and down Reed's body subsided, even though his migraine remained for some reason. Ben let go of the controls and let loose with a long sigh. "There, I ain't never had a bird blown out from under me yet. So what condition is she in at the moment?"

Reed slowly began to run the necessary diagnostics. "The damage is fairly light for the most part, but one of our main engines is damaged, and a fair bit of the equipment related to landing... There's no way we can make it to the moon and back in this condition." Ben chuckled as he slumped in his seat. "Why don't we forget the moon for a bit and you talk to me about what our chances are of getting back home?"

Reed pressed a few more buttons and managed a smile. "Excellent actually. We've still got more than enough fuel, the ships still in good enough condition to handle reentry, and I even installed an autopilot which was designed to take us back to the exact spot we lifted off from which is still intact.. Of course the landing will be a bit rough and probably wreck the ship, but we shouldn't be putting ourselves in any actual danger..."

Ben nodded slowly as he returned to looking at the mostly empty void of space. "Great, however you do that, do it. I need to close my baby blues for a moment and get some well-deserved shut eye..." Reed nodded and activated the emergency autopilot, he felt strangely tired himself as well, perhaps if he could just sleep for a few moments by the itme he woke up his headache would be gone.

--

The emergency escape door fell away, and the would be inter stellar travellers climbed out still dressed in their purple jumpsuits. Just the feeling of getting good old terra firma underneath her soles again was a surprising and unplanned for joy for Susan. Then she saw the look in her brother's eye and got a pretty good idea of exactly what he was thinking.

"Johnny if you say 'let's do that again' right now there isn't a court in the world that would convict me." Johnny made as if those words had been the furthest thing from, his mind. "Actually sis I was about to comment on what a total bust this turned out to be, guess our tour guide wasn't all that smart after all..."

Susan didn't feel that bad about dealing her brother a small whack upside the head, though for some reason her brother's head felt even harder then normal. "Jonathan Spencer Storm! The only reason that we're still alive is because of the brilliance of Reed Richards so you should at least give him a certain amount of respect..."

Since it was clear Johnny wasn't about to do this Susan decided it was time to fight dirty. "Besides, he's also the man who is dating your sister." Because of all the time she'd spent playing mother to him, Johnny tended to take the prospect of her dating about as well as the children of most widows who'd lost their husbands while their kids were still growing up.

Johnny's skin seemed to become noticeably paler and his eyes bulged out in shock slightly before his shoulders slumped and he focused on walking. "Fine, you pretend I'll never said those particular words and I'll pretend you never said anything in response to them." This agreement left Susan free to focus on walking, which was a good thing, because Johnny was making it an unusually difficult task.

He felt heavier, and not just had put on a pound or fifteen while he was at college and thus could eat whatever he wanted, it felt like he weighed at least thirty to fifty pounds more than he used to! As she struggled along Susan realized something else that was out of place, given that he wasn't helping his good for precious little younger brother stumble along their pilot should have passed the two Storms almost at once, and yet he was still hanging behind them. "Something the matter, Ben?"

Susan turned around as she asked the question and Ben waved a hand in a gesture of reassurance. "It's nothing, you think this was bad? You should have seen some of the rough landings I ended up being involved in a few years back, but I walked away from all of them and I'm gonna walk away from this one also!"

The words on their own were comforting, but Ben's tone of voice suggested something completely different than what he said, as did the way that both of his hands seemed to be clutching his shoulders for dear life. Deciding that since the worst Johnny needed was a chance to lay down and catch his breath Susan gently helped him sit down and once she'd done that she raced to Ben's side.

In the process Susan couldn't help but notice that all of a sudden every step she took made her feel decidely... weird. With every step she took it felt as if the world was pulling down on her especially hard, and then especially softly a few moments later.

But any concerns she had over her own state of being were pushed aside as Ben let loose with the kind of cry you'd normally expect only to hear in a gritty action movies when the valiant hero was mercilessly tortured by the evil villains. He sank to his knees with tears starting to form in his eyes. "My shoulders... something wrong with my shoulders..."

Susan gently brushed aside Ben's hands trying to get a look at what could possibly be causing him the pain. But sadly all she saw beneath his hands was the purple jumpsuit. For a moment she contemplated asking him to pull down some of the jumpsuit so she could see what was bothering him beneath it, but before she could decide a strange ripping sound filled her and she jumped away from it out of pure instinct.

Instinct had something going for it that day, because much of the back of Ben's jumpsuit was suddenly torn to shreds as a pair of large purple wings suddenly sprouted from his back. As this happened Ben let loose with such an ear-shattering scream, that it made Susan wonder if she'd lost her hearing for a moment after it ended.

In reality it turned out that Ben's scream had led to an unexpected calm. Now that the wings had finally worked their way to the surface they apparently weren't tearing him apart on the inside, so the only sounds that filled the air after his scream ended was the gentle swishing of Ben's wings as first the right flapped, then the left, then the right again.

He gingerly reached over his shoulder and began to feel out the texture of his wings, to Susan's eye they weren't exactly leathery like a bat's, or winged like a bird's, but instead had segmented plates like they belonged to some kind of insect. "Well I'll be..." Those three words uttered Ben's wings began to beat together in a rhythm that grew quicker and quicker until she wondered if her eyes were deceiving her and Ben was rising off the ground.

Then she knew her eyes weren't as Ben shot upwards into the sky and did a quick loop-de-loop, evidently just for the fun of it. Susan just stared in amazement. She wasn't as smart as Reed, but she was smart enough at a moment like this. So faced with the impossible much to her surprise she found a certain serenity in reciting the facts she had been living by up to this moment. "There's no way that can work. Birds have hollow skeletons which weigh less. A human with a pair of wings that were of the same scale as the ones birds have would never be able to fly. Never..."

Sadly, much like the bumblebee, at the moment Ben was showing blatant disregard for what human knowledge had to say on the subject of aviation, quite easily staying airborne and pulling off an impressive series of maneuvers until he finally came in for a landing that was every bit as smooth as the group's last one was rough. "I'm not exactly sure how it happened but a guy could get used to this..."

Johnny apparently had other ideas as he slowly rose to his feet. "You're happy? Look at yourself Ben, you're a freak! I bet that weird cosmic ray storm we ran into had something to do with this. I'd gladly punch Reed Richards in the face hard enough to knock a few of his teeth loose right about now, but since he isn't around and you're his oldest friend I suppose you'll have to do."

As Johnny spoke his skin became paler, and paler and paler until it lost all trace of color, and became white. Then it went even farther, finally acquiring a silvery metallic sheen to it. He walked towards a large tree, leaving very deep footprints in the ground, wrapped his arms around the trunk and pulled.

He somehow managed rip the tree (roots and all) out of the ground and turned around holding the tree in both hands like an oversized bat. "Now why don't you step away from my sister so I've got some room to swing this thing and can properly crush you!" Ben took to the air, easily ascending to a height beyond which Johnny could strike him, even with the aid of his huge weapon. "Why don't you calm down for a moment kid? Johnny swung away even if all he could hit was empty air.

"Calm? I am calm! I just don't recall signing a disclaimer about how his little trip might involve unexpected mutations!" Susan took a moment to evaluate the situation, and then a single step forward. "Johnny, put down the tree." Her brother stopped swinging away a Ben for a moment to glare a her, leaving the tree to rest horizontally pointing towards her, though she was perhaps about three feet between the end of it and the start of her body.

Granted if Johnny stepped forward and swung that thing unless she managed to go flat on the ground very fast it'd connect, and if it connected it turn whatever part of her body it hit to mush. "Why should I?" There were a great many smart moves someone could made in Susan's situation, but the action she decided on, taking another step forward was doubtlessly not one of them. "Because I'm your older sister and I told you to put it down."

The response she got was more or less word-for-word exactly what she expected to get from Johnny when he was in one of his snits, even if he previously hadn't been able to cause quite so much havoc with just his bare hands. "I'd like to see you make me." "Then make sure to keep your eyes open."

Susan could feel that there was something different about her body, she wasn't sure what, but at some point after getting off of that ship she'd changed, even if it wasn't as obvious as with Ben and Johnny. She slowly curled her hands into fists and all over her body she felt muscles tensing, winding up, compacting, storing energy, as if every single atom of her being was on up on its non-existent legs cheering its heart out, pouring out all the energy it could muster for her.

She allowed her gaze to dip slightly towards the tree, the distance she'd have to cross, then her eyes focused on her brother, the goal she had to reach. Susan dived in without the slightest ounce of hesitation.

Getting from where she currently stood to Johnny would be tricky, luckily her body seemed unusually obliging, in the sense that it seemed to be trying to lengthen itself to make up the difference. No, her body actually was lengthening itself, as from her waist up Susan felt herself growing longer and longer like a tape measure slowly being unwound.

She looped herself around the tree over and over again as she raced along its length. Johnny in surprise dropped the thing, but even as the tree hit the ground Susan only felt a slight bump, and didn't let it deter her. She hadn't become captain of her high school swimming team by pausing when she'd reached the middle of the pool to see how the other swimmers were doing, she did it by picking a target and not letting anything come between her and it, so what if the distance seemed to grow longer?

Water played tricks with the way the eye perceived distance, you kept stroking all the same, or in this case stretching. She reached the end of the stump of the tree and then "leapt" (in the sense of her body arched upwards though she had no idea what was propelling it) and her hands grabbed hold of her brothers.

It was easy from there, her hand elongated wrapping themselves all along the length of her brother's arms before growing even longer so as to bind his midsection and finally his metal legs. Susan pulled, and even if it felt like her brother weighed several hundred pounds, she had all the leverage in the world and subsequently he toppled like a statue.

While he was on the ground he began to get some of his wits back and started to thrash about, achieving. about as much as your average fish did while it flopped about on board a boat with a hook still firmly attached to its jaw. Eventually he lay still with a petulant look on his face.

Ben landed softly next to them gazing at the latest round of squabbling between the members of the Storm family in amazement. "Jeez Susy, I've heard of girls getting bent out of shape before but..." Now that she'd accomplished her goal, Susan finally had time to catch her breath and think about what she'd done.

The first thing she did was look behind her, directly behind her, in the sense of her neck twisted about like to a degree that would have sent plenty of people running to try and find the nearest priest, allowing her to see the 'lengths' to which she had gone, and the fact that her legs were still standing there back where she had been a couple seconds ago as if nothing at all out of the ordinary was going on.

Susan pressed a hand to her neck for a moment and felt the twist she'd put in it. The human body wasn't supposed to be able to bend like that without wrenching the wind pipe, which led to suffocation, so how was she still breathing? Granted the human body wasn't supposed to be able to stretch itself out until it was longer than a tree with arms that had to be over five feet!

Putting aside all the things that she was doing which she wasn't supposed to be able to she returned her attention to her brother and the thing he had been explicitly told by her (and apparently today Susan Storm was proving to be a harsher mistress then common sense) not to do. "Johnny say you're sorry." Johnny squirmed about in the purple part-cocoon part-straitjacket made of his sister's limbs that he had been trapped in.

"No fair, since when could you go all bendy like that! I got used to the fact that you had a longer reach then me growing but this is totally ridiculous!" Susan caused her right arm to elongate slightly, and made as if she was about to tenderly drape this extra length of her body over her brother's mouth.

"Say it now or I won't let you say anything for a long while." Johnny gave in. "Okay fine, I'm sorry Ben. But seriously guys somewhere between almost getting blown up in space, nearly getting killed coming back to earth, you growing wings, is it really so much to ask for one minute for a man to properly freak the hell out so he can at least get losing his shit over and done with before he winds up with post-traumatic stress disorder?"

That was about as close as Susan expected her brother to come to an actual apology and given their less than conventional situations it would do. "No more trying to hit people with trees, promise?" "I promise all right? Just let go of me, the sooner you do that the sooner I can start trying to forget how my sister beat the crap out of me, again."

Susan began to unwind herself slowly, hoping and praying all the while that everything would go back to its proper place. Her current appearance was convenient for the task that used to be at hand, but if she couldn't reverse it then she'd probably end up spending the rest of her days with her head in one room, her belly-button in another, and her ass in a third, not exactly the most enjoyable of arrangements.

Slowly but surly however everything did flow back together. Her arms returned to their original length, her midsection retraced and she found herself once again looking just like she normally would. Or almost like normal. "Very funny guys..."

She wasn't talking to Ben or Johnny but to he index and middle finger of her right hand, she'd crossed them at some point and while she'd been getting the rest of her body back in order they'd just kept right on crossing themselves, at the moment they'd overlapped one another so many times that they now gave her the appearance of having a malformed hand with only three fingers, one of which was far larger than the others. Luckily the situation quickly remedied itself as her fingers untwisted themselves.

Johnny and Ben slowly approached Susan (one on the wing, the other on foot) as if afraid she'd suddenly launch herself at them as her body lost all definition transforming into something resembling the monster out of a bad black-and-white horror film. Well they were all a little unnerved by one another at the moment so at least thing where equal among the three of them. The three of them?

Susan's face met her palm with such force that she was sure she could feel her nose and flattening out before springing back to their normal appearance as she removed her hand. "Reed! We were all so busy worrying about ourselves that none of us realized that Reed's still in the ship. He might have gotten hurt or need help getting out for some other reason."

She tired to make "some other reason" sound as if she was saying he was currently pinned underneath some piece of equipment that had come loose. What she was thinking of course was that given that Ben had grown wings, her brother had apparently turned into some kind of robot and she, Susan decided she'd waste time worrying about her own situation later, logic would seem to dictate that Reed would have changed in some way as well, and that change might be why he hadn't joined them outside the ship.

She took all of one step back towards the ship, and then showing the kind of pinpoint _Diabolus Ex Machina_ that didn't make atheists because anyone who saw such an event would know it couldn't have happened by random chance alone, the ship exploded.

Susan just stood there, she vaguely felt several pieces of flaming shrapnel which ranged in size from about as large as a tick to one that had to be about the size of a baseball struck her body. Susan barely felt the impacts. When the dust finally settled she look down, not one single rip in her purple jumpsuit, no sight of her pink flesh, none of said skin torn open with blood oozing from the cuts, and a nice collection of wreckage various distances from her feet that had apparently tried to go through her and bounced off.

Susan was somehow reminded rather distinctly of some Greek (at least she thought it was Greek she could have been wrong) tragedy about how some famous warrior had been cursed with an indestructible body by a god he'd angered for some reason or another so that he'd never die and subsequently never be reunited with his dead love in the afterlife.

Looking down at the pieces of razor sharp metal which should have torn her open like confetti, but instead had apparently hit her, and only made her body distend slightly before they were slingshotted away with close to the same amount of force as they struck her, a singular thought ran through Susan's mind. Immortality was going to suck.

As that thought passed she found at least a slight silver lining: clearly hanging herself would only leave her with a absurdly long but still functioning neck, putting a gun in her mouth would lead to the bullet bouncing back out, jumping off the Empire State Building would probably leave her two dimensional but doubtlessly for less then a full minute, sticking her head in an oven would probably melt her into a puddle, but poison would probably work.

At least so long as it was the right type of poison, sitting in a closed garage with the car engine on seemed like a fairly good plan also, or better still she could hurl herself into vault of industrial acid.

Of course in the time it'd taken Susan to go over all the plans for suicide that would (and wouldn't) work, she'd also had time to disregard the concept entirely. Johnny didn't deserve to have her remove herself from his life so suddenly, and the entire idea of giving up now seemed disrespectful to Reed's memory. Die in some over-elaborate experiment gone wrong, that perfectly suited him of course, but to actually engineer ones own destruction?

At some point after the blast, the two surviving male members of the craft had taken up positions on either side of her, Johnny put a heavy metal hand on her right shoulder. "I'm sorry about what I said a bit back. "Reed was a great guy, definitely the Fredrick Von Fronkenstein of mad scientists. He sort of reminded me of myself sometimes actually, because behind all of those words that went right over my head, at the end of the day he was a just a guy who wanted to play with his toys."

She also felt one of Ben's arms on her left shoulder, and one of his wings rubbing up against her back. "Reed wasn't the first friend I've lost like that, when his bird basically blew itself to bits around him. It would have been quick like that, and painless as you could ask for."

Somebody disagreed. /Ouch...\ Susan felt her eyebrows just about jump off of her head. "Did either of you two just here somebody say 'ouch' by any chance?" From the surprised and downcast looks on their faces they evidently hadn't, which in turn meant that they probably thought she was either just plain crazy or at least too stricken with grief to be thinking properly.

But she was sure she had heard that voice, well maybe 'heard' wasn't the right word, it was more like she had sensed it, but voices didn't just pop into people's heads for no reasons. "Fine go ahead and call me crazy you can even make the little swirling index finger gestures while you're at it, but even after a blast like that there's probably something left of him that we should find so that we can bury something more than a coffin full of dirt with his name on it!"

They couldn't argue with her on that, so regardless of whatever they thought the chances of finding something alive among the ruins was, the three of them began to sort through the rubble. In the process both Storm siblings showed off considerably. Johnny was easily able to lift even the largest bits of rubble and hurl them aside while Susan found that she could extend her fingers to any length that she wanted them to be, sending them crawling this way and that among the wreckage hoping to find something that felt organic in nature.

Though sadly Susan's probing fingers failed to locate any trace of Reed, she did realize something about herself. There was no denying that she'd been in "L" "O" "V" "E" "LOVE" with Reed Richards. He'd doubtless meant a lot more to her than just some old (well older) guy who she was throwing down with in exchange for some monetary favors (room and board instead of actual cash changing hands) or some eccentric genius who she hung around with because his foibles amused her, if he was just either of those things then there was no way she'd be feeling the way she currently was.

Whoever had said "you don't know what you have till you lose it" had been right on the money, no doubt about it. Except that at the moment Susan was still clinging to the impossible hope that she hadn't lost it. Okay maybe not impossible, as Reed would say nothing was impossible until it was directly proven, until then it was just an implausible theory, like that Reed had been changed in such a way so as to survive having a front row seat to having a rocket which still had enough fuel left in it for a one-way trip to the moon blow itself to bits.

Despite Susan and her brother's advantages slow and steady won this particular race, it was Ben who the first to find something worth talking about among the wreckage, and what a something. "Wow, we can probably get at least a page in Ripley's for this if not two. The entire rocket goes up like a string of firecrackers and yet somehow his brain is left in perfect condition. Couldn't ask for a much more fitting representation of him."

In Ben's hands he held what to Susan's eyes was apparently a human brain. Just a brain, no remnants of a skull, no actual damage done to the brain or any other sort of suggestion what exactly had destroyed the skull or the rest of the body. /Forgive me for being overly dramatic, but rumours of my demise have been greatly exaggerated.\

Susan was quite sure that she wasn't the only one who had heard it this time around, chiefly because Ben suddenly decided to treat the brain like it was hot enough to scorch his palms and dropped it. Without even thinking about it Susan's right arm shoot out her palm flattening in the process so as to catch the vital organ without harming it.

Johnny pointed at the brain and his voice two full octaves above normal and a slight stutter in his voice. "I'm not the only one who heard that right? Except that I'd have to be crazy to have heard that, I mean it's a freaking brain, how is it suppose to talk, it's like a dog with no nose smelling..." It was one of the oldest jokes in the book which was probably why Reed actually knew the punchline. /Horrible. I wasn't sure at first but I think it's probably a fair bet that in addition to being able to survive in my current less than ideal environment, I'm also psychic.\

More looks were exchanged among the three who still had eyes to gives looks with. In the end Ben's cold practicality won it. "Well they say, anything is better then being dead." Johnny nodded slowly and solemnly. "Let me guess, much too soon to be making jokes along the lines of how he always was the brains of the operation?" Susan nodded curling her left hand into a fist (since her right was busy holding Reed) and emphasis was added to the gesture by the way her hand promptly grew to around three times its normal size. "Much too soon."

Her hand shrunk back to its normal size as quickly as it had grown. Ben shook his head as he turned his back on what was left of the wreckage. "Seeing as the autopilot did take us back to our take-off point more or less we can probably reach civilization fairly easily, though that assumes that civilization doesn't get out the torches and pitchforks the moment it catches sight of us."

Johnny playful drove his metal elbow with enough force that it should have cracked one of Susan's ribs, luckily she didn't seem to have any at the moment the impact just distorted her body slightly. "Well we will just have to send my sister ahead first. At the moment she looks like something that was actually born and didn't climb out of a foul-smelling bog beneath the light of the full moon, or was created as part of a plot to take over the world."

Susan didn't disagree, her body hadn't grown any extra appendages, her skin was still the same color, as long as certain parts of her didn't start growing long or getting shorter all of a sudden she could probably pass for human. "And after that?" She'd expected it to be one of those question that hung in the air so forcefully that it all but cast a physical dark cloud over their heads. Instead her brother snagged it like a dog would a Frisbee the moment it left her mouth.

"After that we become superheroes." Susan and Ben both glared at him, but Johnny just shrugged. "Hey, if you guys can think of something better to do with your superpowers than fight crime I'd like to hear it." Susan could think of all kinds of better things she'd rather spend her time doing, like work how she felt about deciding she was in love with a man before finding out that all was left of him was his brain, his living psychic brain that could talk, but just his brain none the less.

/I think Johnny's' idea has a certain amount of merit to it.\ She wasn't sure if Reed had been observing her thoughts (he officially claimed to be psychic now) or just throwing his general opinions into the ring. Either way they caused Susan and Ben to harmonize over the exact same two words. "You do?"

If Reed had been able to nod or otherwise give ascent he probably would have. /We've gifted with great powers, and should try do some good with them. Though I suppose that we should try to focus on the problems at hand before we go about making long term plans. I could be wrong, but I think my car is still intact...\

It was, the pickup truck that Ben had used to transport himself and Johnny to the area hadn't been so lucky, to judge by the crater that was left of it Susan would guess that some piece of flaming debris from the exploding rocket had struck its fuel tank. Reed's car on the other hand had only picked up a couple new adornments -- pieces of jagged metal sticking out of it here and there -- but none of the tires had gone flat and it seemed to still be road-worthy.

The three would be astronauts turned would be superheroes and gathered around the vehicle like it was some kind of blessed holy shrine. It was locked, and all the doors were shut of course, so Susan quickly turned her attention to the fourth member of the group who she was still carrying. "So where are the keys?"

If Reed's brain had possessed sweat glands they would have been kicking in full blast to judge by the tone 'voice'. /Well they were in one of the pockets of the jacket I took off and stored in the rocket when I put on my jump suit. So they're probably melted scrap...\ The sound of Johnny's metal hand hitting his metal head was a cross between the ringing of a bell and an industrial accident in the making.

"Well that's just great. Okay fine, seeing as I'm able to tear through whatever kind of metal your rocketship was made of like tissue paper, something tells me that I won't have too much trouble breaking a window with my bare hand. Sis if you'd stand aside I'll just punch through the driver's side window, and unlock it that way, then I'll pop the hood, we hot wire and we ride back."

He sounded a bit to confident that someone in the group would be able to successfully hotwire a car for Susan's liking but she wasn't exactly surprised. /I'd prefer that you didn't.\ Johnny sighed his shoulder's slumping slightly. "Listen, I of all guys understand why you don't want me smashing one of your windows, but considering everything else it has been through it's more or less a lost cause no matter how you look at it.

Besides if we're gonna be superheroes we'll need a mode of transportation that looks WAY cooler than this thing did even when it was new, back when fossil fuels meant killing a dinosaur grinding up its bones and pouring the powder into the tank." It was a long way to go for a bad joke, but Susan's found it rather reassuring, as long as the four of them could laugh and joke among each other then they weren't completely screwed the way they had all felt back up in that ship when those, whatevers had started pouring in and doing, whatever to their bodies.

/I actually do have an alternative suggestion. Susan would you mind handing me over to Ben, you'll need both hands free before too long.\ Susan nodded and slowly did hand Reed's over, trying not to think about the sound that it made in the process. /See that hole where a piece went through the driver's side window? Put your hand against it, then see if you can work a finger or two through the hole and open the door from the inside.\

Part of Susan wanted to ask how exactly Reed could see anything given that had no eyes, but she wasn't particular enamored of any of the possible answers she might get. So instead she simply pressed her palm against the crack in question, which was plenty big enough to have slipped a penny or even a quarter through. She had to work at it for a few moments but she managed to fit her entire hand through it, then it was just a matter of making that hand attached to a long enough arm let it firmly grasp the small lever which had locked the door and jerk it into the unlocked position.

Susan only had to think about it to get her arm to zip back through the minuscule hole in the window, and she tenderly began to stroke as if to make sure it really was that easy. While she had been doing that Johnny had brushed past her, opened the door and climbed into the drivers seat. "All right, now it's my time to shine. Now let's see to pop the hood I should just need to..."

He got no farther before Reed interrupted again. /Actually Johnny I want to have Susan try something first...\ Johnny grumbled slightly but shifted over to the passenger's side seat the car protesting his weight slightly. Susan climbed into the driver's seat and waited for the orders she knew she was going to get.

/If you think you can handle driving one handed, why don't you try turning your left hand, or even a single finger should be enough really into a mockup of the key...\ Susan couldn't help but wonder just how much enjoyment Reed might have been getting out of 'watching' her twist and contort herself in all kinds of unnatural ways. That said, she had a rather sick fascination with it herself. Johnny was clearly a lot stronger then he used to be, Ben could fly, and what was she exactly?

Not wanting to look like a fool, she decided to use her entire left hand, sending it flowing into the ignition, and then carefully shaped it by touch alone so that it perfectly matched every ridge and bump waiting for her. Only after she was certain her 'handiwork' was perfect did she close her eyes and twist her left wrist.

Even after being peppered with shrapnel the engine came to life almost at once. So apparently she could exert enough force on her body to have it pass for a metal car key, she wasn't sure why that discovery made her feel so good, but it did. Of course while she expressed that confidence with a small well dissevered smirk her brother was a bit more vocal. "Wow Sis you're turning into a veritable Swiss Army knife!"

Before Susan could respond there came a slight tapping at one of the car's slightly shrapnel-studded windows. She twisted her neck around to see it was Ben doing the tapping, he was still standing outside the car. Susan quickly looked and saw that the car didn't have a polite little button to press in order to unlock all the doors, if she wanted to unlock the door that Ben was standing at either she or Johnny would have to do it.

Sending Johnny to do it would probably cause him to do another hundred dollars or so of damage to the interior of Reed's car, but if she'd do it hen she'd either have to stop using her left hand as a makeshift, key... or she'd need longer arms. As Susan stretched out her right arm to unlock the necessary door she reflected that she would have slapped herself in the face to punish herself for her stupidity.

It was just as her right hand got a firm grip on the lock that what could only be described as a tentacle sprang from her left arm and rapped her softly across the cheek before it vanished back into the limb it had sprung from in the first place. Johnny chuckled at the sight and Susan glowered.

For a moment she contemplated slapping her arm, but while Susan might not be as much of a fan of slapstick as her brother she was fairly certain she'd seen a cartoon along similar lines and could guess how it would play out. She'd slap her left arm and then one of her feet would find a way to kick her in her own posterior, by the time she had finished fighting herself she'd be such a mess that Ben and Johnny would spend the rest of the day fixing her, and now was no time for squabbling amongst each other, of any type, so she let it go.

Ben climbed in and closed the door, adjusting himself as best he could so as to hold onto Reed, buckle in, and not have his wings get in the way. Once he'd done that Susan attached her own seatbelt and glared at her brother until amid protests of how he was made of harder stuff then the car he buckled up as well. Then she put her foot down, despite the fact that it was leaving carrying several times the weight it had originally brought to the site, Reed's car managed to reach a respectable speed fairly quickly.

"Like a band of gypsies we go down the highway, we're the best of friend insisting that the world keep turning our way, and our way, is on the road again..." "Johnny the driving manual suggests that the you should use only one foot to work the pedals regardless of whether it's accelerator or brake. "I've got one hand for a key so that our engine runs, and one hand on the wheel so I can more or less steer. If you do the math, that still leaves me one leg free to strangle you if with if you make me want to hard enough." The three of them listened to the sounds of silence, all the way back.

End of chapter one.

AN: As some of you can probably guess by this point, obviously this story is intended to serve as a prequel to my other story Swelling With Love (which I've posted about 3/4ths of on ) That said, this story will eventually stretch itself out to the last chapter of this story perfectly book ending the first chapter of SWL.

If you haven't read my other story then this chapter alone should at least give it a more solid grounding then a simple paragraph long author's note at the start of it. If you haven't, then hopefully I've wetted your interest.

Either way hope you enjoy , I'll probably update this story about once every two weeks, and know that I crave reviews like a vampire does blood.


	2. Chapter 2

Original Twist Chapter Two, Creation: In which Reed Richards founds a new business.

To her credit, Susan managed to drive the car back to Reed's house with only one hand on the wheel. Of course about a quarter of the way there she discovered that by extending the length of her arm and looping it a second time around the wheel she was able to more or less drive as well as she could if she hadn't been using both hands.

So finally having arrived back home she removed her hand from the car's ignition and unbuckled herself. "You three boys just stay here and I'll go try see if my magic fingers can't get us home without needing to cause any property damage." She owned a key to the house of course, the problem was that she'd left it inside because Reed had taken his set of keys with him, and Reed Richards wasn't the kind of absentminded scientist who misplaced his possessions, he was the typed who misplaced his body apparently.

The humor in that statement was just about midnight black, but it was humor none the less. Susan approached the door and stared at its defenders, an ordinary lock and a deadbolt. So she had two mechanical contrivances to thwart this time around, well with two hands that shouldn't be too difficult.

Flushed with confidence from her victory over the car's engine, she worked her right hand into the deadbolt and her left into the lock. Then she carefully worked her hands till they mirrored the necessary keys and twisted. Her left hand once again gained a satisfactory click, but her right had no such luck. She twisted, heaved, glowered, and growled, but all without success, her fingers weren't providing enough leverage to let her move the deadbolt.

Eventually she gave a whimper and pulled her hands from the locks and slammed both of them against the door in irritation. "Damn it." /Don't give up.\ Susan looked at the door in irritation, and the fact that she was only just getting used to hearing her now disembodied love interest's voice in her mind was starting to wear on her at the moment.

She turned away from the door knowing that if anyone was watching she'd look like she was insane, but between given that she was wandering around in a purple jumpsuit in broad daylight, insane wasn't a hard conclusion to come to. "Reed I can't work the deadbolt, maybe if you had been a little bit less paranoid when it came to home security we wouldn't have to deal with this problem."

/You don't have to shout Susan, I can hear your thought just fine even if you just concentrate on thinking them. As I was about to say, given the elasticity that your body has previously displayed, if you focus on it you should be able to slip your entire body under the door with ease.\ Susan got down on her knees, sure enough it wasn't like they sold air airtight houses, there was a space there that she could clearly see. Clearly see, but squeeze through? /What do you have to lose?\

Susan stared at the opening, playing around with her body her hands, her legs, that was fairly easy, but all of her meant, well all of her, including her head. Did she really want to try and risk whatever sort of weird stuff might happen to her if she compacted her head down to fit through that kind of opening? Susan stood up, it was not a gesture of defeat but of preparation for battle.

She wedged her right foot against the opening and began to slowly thin it down until it was able to pass through, considering what Reed had lost she had to try one way or another. Slowly that flatness worked her way up her body, first her feet then her legs, after that her lower body, followed quickly by her upper body, and finally everything north of her neck.

In a different situation she would have taken a deep breath before attempting such a feat, but big bulging lungs full of air seemed like the absolutely last thing she needed at the moment, so instead had just taken one quick breath, closed her eyes and plunged forward. Now as she opened them, Susan found herself looking around the house, she was inside!

Susan let loose with a very heavy sigh as her body slow unfolded and expanded returning to its normal proportions. Unlocking the door was easy now that she was working from the other side, and once she'd completed the task she had to resist the urge to let out a whistle to call her three companions forward.

As it was, Ben and Johnny came running as fast as they could, and Susan got out of their way making sure to close the door once they entered. Operating on pure instinct more than anything else (not even Reed's psychic suggestions) the three pulled up chairs around the main table in the kitchen. /Ben, not that I don't appreciate your dedication, but now that we have more supplies at hand would you mind providing me with a slightly more prestigious resting place?\

As it turned out Reed's idea of a "more prestigious resting place" was a simple clean cake mixing bowl, but never having been a bodiless brain (her current state was enough of a change thank you very much) she couldn't be sure about what passed for luxury among them. Ben crossed his arms as he looked around the table. "So now what?"

Once again Johnny showed real skill at reducing deep philosophical question to the simplest answer imaginable. "I don't know about you two but I say we eat." Susan felt one of her eyebrows raising slightly. "Umm, do you still eat?" Johnny shrugged as he stood up. "I feel hungry, so I'm going to try eating something, and if it makes me feel better then I don't care if I piss oil a few hours down the line."

Susan's own stomach gurgled slightly, there had been food on the rocket of course since they hadn't expected to find any on the moon, but given that she hadn't had any since breakfast a meal actually did sound like a very good idea.

So for a short while the kitchen was filled with the hustle and bustle of three superpowered people each trying to make themselves a meal. It did not quite dissolve into some kind of vaudeville physical comedy routine, but between Ben's wings, Johnny still not quite knowing his own strength and the fact that Susan found herself unable to resist the temptation of simply reaching for things halfway across the room it was a near thing.

Thus when Johnny asked "so when do we hand out the pies" all three of them laughed. In fact they laughed much longer then the joke deserved, followed promptly by a period of crying that lasted for almost as long as the laughter, and only after they'd managed to finally empty themselves emotionally could they bring themselves to eat and drink.

Only after all that was over and done with did Susan finally recover enough grace to ask the obvious question. "So Reed do you need anything?" /No.\ Susan didn't press the issue, it'd take a mind like Reed's to figure out exactly how a mind like Reed's could exist in such an usual state.

"Okay, I know that there's a lot of stuff we have to worry about, but really considering how well stocked this place is why don't we just put that on hold for the moment? Agreed?" Both Ben and Johnny nodded, and quickly departed, the house had three bedrooms, one large one that she and Reed had shared, and two smaller ones that Ben and Johnny could make themselves at home in.

After they left Susan just sat at there in the kitchen looking at Reed's brain in the bowl in front of her. Talking was easier than thinking really hard, and talking let her hear her own voice, and at the moment she appreciated every reminder she could get about how she was still the same in some ways. "Well, it would appear that things didn't quite go how you planned them to."

It might have just been her imagination but it seemed like the bowl wobbled slightly in time with Reed's response. /Yes they have.\ Susan cover her eyes with both of her hands. "You know what would be great Reed? For you to tell me right now that regardless of how messed up things are, you actually foresaw this particular possibility. So any moment now you're about to rattle off some long multistage plan that you're going to roll out in multisyalballic words that will make me want to make like we're playing Scrabble and dig out a dictionary just to be sure you're not making some of them up.

Because those kinds of words always make me sleepy, and right now I could just drape myself in them and fall asleep right at the table knowing that everything will be all right. Can you tell me that, can you?" She hadn't meant to sound demanding, but she didn't feel like beating herself for her control over her emotions leaving something to be desired at the moment. /I can't say that.\

Susan nodded very slowly, it would have been nice if Reed told her if he'd expected this kind of thing to have happened, but she hadn't expected it. Reed Richards was a scientist, not some wizard to come along wave a magic wand and suddenly make everything in Susan's life all better. "Well then I suppose the question becomes not 'are we screwed', but 'exactly how badly screwed are we' once we've full considered our situation?"

It was most unsettling sensation, talking with a brain, not just for the obvious reason, but because she was having a conversation with a being who's appearance stayed exactly the same regardless of what it was saying. /Things aren't that bad. Even if I'm declared legally dead, my will leaves about half of my liquid assets and all of my possessions to you.\

"Ching ching..." Susan did her best to imitate the sound of a cash register, because anything that made her lips twitch so much as a single millimeter felt like it was worth doing at the moment. /We can go about letting the government know about the unorthodox results of our flight once we're settled. From there, well I think it might be time to take a step up in the world.\

That last comment earned another welcome twitch form her lips. "Really? I suppose you plan to do some research and find an ancient crystal ball currently in possession of some museum which legend states some long dead soothsayer used to see the future and buy it, then make that our new place of residence?"

Exaggeration to absurdity was such a wonderful trick because the devil was in the details, if you could manage to emotionally distance yourself enough then any event could seem comedic. /Not exactly. I figure that if we're going to be superheroes we might as well operate out of some place more centrally located, not to mention more defensible. I'm thinking a skyscraper a the moment.\

Susan (and just about everyone else) tended to forget because of the humility that he possessed that Reed Richards possessed that he was equally capable of the kind of audacity that Prometheus had shown when he'd stolen fire from the gods. "Yeah a skyscraper. So I'm guessing we're tossing the entire idea of secret identities out the window?" /It's not like Ben and Johnny could conceal themselves with a trench coat, pair of sunglasses, or mask is it?\

Susan couldn't exactly disagree with that statement. "Okay, fair enough. But still, jeez, from actress to superheroine that's a lot to swallow..." /I'd be surprise if you couldn't unhinge your jaw.\ That response came with unflinching sincerity that did not find all that reassuring at the moment. She gained some measure of revenge by flicking the bowl that Reed was resting in, though the act proved more enjoyable in her mind than in practice.

"I suppose you're right, besides from everything we've seen today somebody is going to need to keep my metal brother in check and apparently I'm the only one up to the task. At least at the moment, maybe you should start working on some kind of giant magnet we can use to pin him to the fridge if he starts getting on our nerves."

Of course what she didn't say was that one way or another Johnny was probably going to continue to get on all their respective nerves, in fact having superpowers was probably (make that doubtlessly) going to make him worse. /Speaking of getting to work, Susan would you mind carrying me down to the lab and giving me some help?\ Susan looked down at Reed and sighed. "Let me guess, you need me to lend a left hand, a right hand, a pair of legs, or to save us both some time, just about everything you need to work the stuff in your lab, but no longer possess?" /More or less.\

Susan didn't have to think twice about that request, she picked up Reed's bowl and headed for the basement of the house which he used for his laboratory. "Might as well..." There simply weren't any other attractive choices open to her. What else could she do, drape herself over some chair and watch TV while leaving Reed to wallow in his own helplessness the moment that his luck turned against him?

Yeah, that was exactly what she was going to do to the man she realized that she loved at exactly the wrong time. Luckily even with Reed's brain in it, the bowl was light enough for her to hold in one hand, so she didn't need to lean against a wall balancing on one foot while her other wrapped itself around the necessary knob to open the basements door. As Susan walked into the basement she took a moment slowly look left and right, she'd been in here a few times, but not familiar enough to memorize its layout, especially considering how frequently its owner reorganised it.

It was only as she entered into Reed's private sanctum that a rather unpleasant thought occurred to her. "Please, please, please, tell me that I'm only here to act as your defacto lab assistant and not expected to be your guinea pig as well."

For a moment Susan had a vision of herself strapped down to a table, her own limbs tied in overly elaborate knots to keep the rest of her in place, but it vanished just as quickly as is came, not only was she pretty sure Reed wouldn't try to do something like that to her, but even more importantly, he couldn't.

The only person in the room capable of restraining Susan at the moment was herself, even leaving aside her superpowers Reed couldn't so much as flip on a light switch without her. She put the bowl containing Reed down on the closest available table so that she could properly bury her face in both hands out of irritation, just great, now in addition to everything else she was going to have to play nurse to the only scientist in the world both smarter and less self-sufficient then Stephen Hawking. /Not a bad idea actually.\

Susan straightened up removing her hands from her face. "What's not a bad idea?" /Stephen Hawking. He uses a specially designed chair to overcome many of the disabilities he faces. Given enough time I might be able to do the same thing. Of course until then once we're properly established I should be able to fairly easily hire some people to act as my hands.\

It was going to be a long while before Susan got used to the fact that Reed was psychic. "Could you, I don't know at least give me some kind of warning when you're going to do that? I have problems with people reading over my shoulder, having someone pear into my ear and read my thoughts weather or not I care to say them out loud is a whole nother level of both annoying and disturbing.

Speaking of disturbing you still haven't answered my previous question about whether or not you want to study me." Susan probably imagined certain parts of Reed's brain going a little more red then pink for a few moments. /Sorry. As for your question, not exactly. The first thing I want to study is your clothes.\ Susan sighed as she once again looked around the lab, then stretched out an arm to close is door not hat Johnny or Ben were all that likely to want to come down here any time soon.

"From anybody but you that would probably be a come-on. So what exactly makes my clothes so special all of a sudden, you designed this jumpsuit in the first place, didn't you?" /Yes, but even though I designed it to be skin tight, the way that the one you're wearing has been acting, its uncanny. You did notice the fact that despite how you stretched your body you still remained perfectly clothed, didn't you?\

Susan in fact hadn't, she'd been much more concerned about the fact that her body had suddenly become able to twist and bend itself every which way like Silly Putty than the fact that her clothing had as well, since she hadn't found herself in danger of disrobing herself in the process of using her powers she hadn't given so much thought to her outfit. "You're right... I guess now you're going to tell me that our clothing got screwed around with in that cosmic ray storm the same way did?" His answer certainly didn't come as a surprise to Susan. /We won't know for sure until we run some tests...\

So they did.

--

They did all sorts of things to Susan's clothing. Eventually she felt so thoroughly run down that she could barely keep her eyes open and Reed agreed that they could call it a night. Without even thinking she had scooped up Reed's bowl and carried it upstairs with her into their bedroom.

She carefully placed it on a nightstand next to the bed and without removing her clothes, wormed her way under the covers hoping to fall asleep the moment she closed her eyes. Sadly that hope went unrewarded as she soon discovered that the bed felt wrong in all kinds of ways suddenly.

Amazingly enough very few of them had to do with her powers, the chief two offenders were that the bed felt both too cold, and too big. She twisted and turned without success, and eventually decided that if it came to a choice between dignity and sleep, she'd go with sleep.

Susan grabbed the extra large blanket she'd kicked off the bed during her twisting and turning, and played with its folds until it was at least more or less the general height and width of a human body. She wrapped her arms around it, and leaned in against, it opening her eyes as she did. It was more or less pitch black in the room, and even if it hadn't been she had no way of knowing if her roommate was asleep or not, if he even needed sleep given his condition.

"Reed, I...hope you're right about the entire superheroes thing working out." /Thank you.\ Susan promptly buried her head into her pillow and screamed in mute protest at her own idiocy. Given their situation she would not let now be the first time either of them had mentioned the "L" word in reference to the other!

Reed deserved better than that, if this was bad for her it had to be infinitely worse for him since he was the one without a body. In fact, given that he was psychic Susan vowed to herself to not even think to herself about Reed Richards and... zero points in tennis in same sentence while the were in the same room.

Susan shook her head in irritation, it was foolish to think that any cipher she could come up with would stop Reed Richards from realizing she was thinking of herself as being in 12-15-22-5 with him. Regardless of whether or not he realized it, he 'said' nothing and eventually she drifted off to sleep.

--

Susan slowly blinked her eyes open and then gave her arms a good stretch to throw off any stiffness they had picked up over the night. Her dreams had been weird, very weird. The closest she could come to describing them as that now she knew how that Coyote from the Road Runner cartoons felt, except that instead of chasing her bird with the intention of eating it she'd been chasing her brother because he had done, something foolish she wasn't sure what, through a desert and he had seem unusually adept at running.

So she'd kept calling up Reed on an apparently indestructible cellphone that got very good reception in the middle of nowhere and having him send over various different devices which were apparently all in the prototype stages to judge by how just about every single one of them failed to work the way it was suppose to. Said failures inevitably resulted in her getting slammed into a wall, falling off of a cliff, or simply having the device blow up in her face, but after all those calamities she'd walked it off or shook it off in the case of the explosions which left her covered with black soot.

Near the end she'd been rammed by a train that Johnny had been driving and left splattered all along it like a hood ornament, until she'd slipped down and gotten run over by every single section of the train, which of course had been comedic (and painfully) long.

After it had finally passed she had stood up, the ruts carved into her body by many, many, many, wheels vanishing almost instantly, shooken her fist and yelled something at the rapidly vanishing train. Susan was drawn from her revelry as she tried to open a drawer so she could change into some new clothes, and failed. The problem was that she was trying to open it with her elbows, since when she had stretched her arms they had apparently wound up falling on either side of the bed like long coils of rope.

It was this point that she suddenly realized why she had gone to sleep in her clothes last night, and why her clothing consisted of a purple jumpsuit. Susan remember everything that had happened to herself, and the others yesterday and chose to eloquently express herself in two words. "AWW FU..."

--

"You realize sis that you can't harp on me about it the next time I curse?" Susan glared at her brother across the table they were eating breakfast on. "Yes I can. So long as I'm your older sister and dad doesn't magically walk back into our lives you're going to have to do what I say."

Johnny considered this, and then shrugged. "Well life could be worse. Considering how thin the walls apparently are I suppose I should be glad that you weren't showing Reed you really do love him for his brains."

Susan casually looked at her reflection in the glass of water she'd been drinking from as she enjoyed a breif fantasy about how if she tossed it on her brother it might cause him to sizzle, short circuit, and then drop to the floor in a pile of twisted metal that should be dumped into the nearest recycling bin.

That barb had hurt worse than any her brother produced in a very long time, because it was a dead center bullseye. Yes last night Susan had under Reed's direction worked herself into a state of apathy where all she wanted was to put her head on a pillow, close her eyes, and be done with it, but how frequently would that be the case? Contrary to popular belief (especially where sitcoms were concerned) "sleeping on the couch" could be just as painful for a woman as a man.

Rather then risk her brother's life and limb, she just took a quick sip from the glass and set it down. "Considering that my brother is evidently going to decide to be one unless I keep him wrapped up 24/7 and Reed thinks its a good idea, I suppose I'll be willing to give this entire superhero thing a shot. Ben how do you feel about it?"

Ben was at the moment shifting back and forth, his wings evidentially not enjoying the sensation of being pressed up against the back of his chair. Like Susan Ben was still dressed in his purple jumpsuit, evidently having no desire to tear a pair of wing shaped holes in another one of his shirts (Reed kept a spare change of clothes on hand for both Johnny and Ben in the house since they stayed over at least once a month).

Before he answered, Ben finally settled for a sort of half crouching his chair which left his back and wings pointed up into empty air but couldn't have been very comfortable all the same. "Reed, needed me to fly that stupid rocket, and it seems like he needs me even worse now. Far as I'm concerned that's all there is to it."

Johnny pounded his meal hands on the table just a little too hard leaving noticeable dents and cracks in it. Unlike the other two he had changed into some regular clothing, even if it looked half ridiculous half just plain odd against his silvery body. "Sweet! Well then if we're gonna be superheroes we're gonna need to think up some new names, I'm thinking Mandroid for myself at the moment." Susan let her eyes turn towards the bowl which held all that remained of Reed Richards, it was once again occupying the center of the table between the three of them.

"Reed thinks that we shouldn't bother with secret identities given the difficulty you two would have passing for ordinary people in public, so I don't think that we really need to worry about code names." From the look on Johnny's face Susan might have just punted a puppy clean across the Atlantic for the fun of it.

"Okay the no secret identifies thing I can live with, but we're still going to have to have some kind of superhero name to go by so that we can bravely announce that we've arrived and properly strike fear into the superstitious and cowardly hearts of criminals everywhere. I mean think about it what exactly are you going to say when you come across a bunch of guys breaking the law, 'stop or you'll face the wrath of Susan Storm' yeah it works on me, but remember I'm suppose to be on your side."

Once again to her amazement Reed sided with her brother. /Johnny has a point Susan, the more fights we can win through psychological warfare, the fewer we'll have to resolve with our fists and risk someone suffering the kind of harm that hospitals can't fix. I think Big Brain would be about as appropriate as anything else given my current condition.\ Ben carefully ran a hand along each of his wings before throwing his own proverbial hat into the ring. "Dragonfly sounds just about right for me..."

Which left two of the tables occupants staring at Susan with their eyes, and one of them just managing it to imply it somehow, leaving her with no choice but to say the first thing that came to her mind "Fine then, how about Rubber Girl?"

Susan began to shake her head even before the words were out of her mouth. "No forget that, I can't even say it without wanting to cringe..." After showing just how well her mind didn't work on deadlines Susan earned herself some time to push ideas around until she finally found one she liked, or at least could live with.

"Ultra Woman, there, that's a superheroine name I can manage to say with a straight face." Once again Johnny glared at her with eyes full of reproach. "Come on sis, you've got to be able to think up something better than that." Susan crossed her arms, then she made her arms grow longer until they could be crossed a second time to show she really meant it. "What exactly is wrong with it?"

Johnny openly snickered in her face, but then it wasn't the first time he had, not by far. "Come on, don't tell me you haven't noticed a pattern. Reed calls himself Big Brain, because that is what he is at this point, Ben calls himself Dragonfly because he's got wings and can fly with them, I call myself Mandroid because I look sort of like a robot and the Amish are probably the only people in America who haven't at least seen one of the Star Wars movies.

So what part of 'Ultra' suggests to people that you can stretch? At least Rubber Girl would have been 'on message' as the politicians say. I mean I can come up with something better than Ultra Woman right off the top of my head -- Bendy Babe, what do you think?" Susan glared right back at him. "I think last time I checked I was trying to figure out what to call myself as a superheroine, rather then what alias I wanted to go by to keep people from realizing I had appeared in the kind of movie you have to cross a beaded curtain to check out.

Like I said, it has a timeless quality to it if nothing else, after all what part of 'Wonder' suggests incredible strength, durability, and a magic unbreakable lasso that compels people to tell the truth?" Johnny shrugged sourly. "Fine, call yourself whatever you want sis, but I bet inside a month you're gonna go bouncing to the... hmm I guess there really isn't a place that you have register what your superhero 'alias' is and you'd have to go to get it changed. Moving right along then, if we're gonna be a team we're gonna need a team name..." /The Fantastic Four.\

Whatever Johnny had been about to say died on his lips, though a large smile took its place as he gently wrapped the back side of his hand up against Reed's bowl in a makeshift pat on the back. "Okay sis, you seriously need to start taking lessons from Reed about this superhero stuff, we're only just getting out of the gate and he is already way better it than you!"

Susan undid the double-crossing of her arms, so that she could sit with an elbow on the table, and the hand attached to that elbow supporting her chin as she leaned in to show her bemusement. "Really? Because impressive as Reed's skill with alliteration is, I think clever wordplay takes a back seat to actually fighting crime on the list of things superheroes need to be good at."

Those words said, Susan really didn't want to utter their implications, she'd already bested Johnny once, while Reed was probably just going to sit there in his bowl the entire time. /Susan raises a good point.\ She sincerely hopped that he was 'talking' about what she'd just said rather then what she'd just been thinking.

/In my current condition I won't be much good to the group in combat, but hopefully simply the fact that I can provide the three of you with finances and various devices should prove reasonably useful, not to mention help you coordinate in combat without providing any sort of visual, let alone verbal, clues that you're in communication with one another.\ Johnny gave another one of his masterful shrugs. "Okay first thing we need to do, better car, seriously, in fact we should probably each get our own car, and go the James Bond route with it also.

Buy something stylish, then start upgrading it with a couple inches of whatever the best kind of material you can come up with to use for armor, bulletproof glass, machine guns under hood, missiles, rockets, oil slicks, puncture proof tires, oh and supercharge the engines also, I'm not saying supersonic but it should at least be able of doing three digits."

Looks were exchanged, Johnny might be armor plated, but between the crossfire they laid down Susan and Ben's glares could have skewered a battleship. "Kid I think there are going to be more important things hat Reed can spend his money on then making that you have the kind of car that couldn't be any more ostentatious unless you had it blaring your own personal theme song through subwoofers powerful enough that they should up on the Richter Scale."

Sadly said glares still weren't enough to dampen her brother's spirits. "Good point, Ben, we're gonna need a theme song at some point, I wonder if there are people you can hire for that kind of thing or does it have to be a do it yourself kind of job. Oh, and a logo, not to mention cool-looking uniforms!"

Susan let her eyes wander away from what certainly appeared to be one giant metal container with precious little brain in it, to a much smaller metal container with precious little besides brain in it. "What do you think of all this, since it is your money that we're going to be spending and possibly squandering in the process of saving the world?" Reed's mental voice wasn't thrown in the slightest. /At the very least we do need to consider most of the points Johnny brings up. I should probably see about trademarking the Phrase 'Fantastic Four' and all the derivatives of it before we get to work doing anything else.\

Johnny's smile at those 'words' was so smug that Susan would have liked to have had a pie in either hand. "Sweet, I for one can't wait until we've got our own brand of merchandise, action figures, TV shows, movies, maybe even a comic book!" More patronizing looks were exchanged. "You're putting the cart before the horse there brother, remember I'm currently still the only one who has a shot at going out in public without freaking people out, and if I don't where this jumpsuit then I might end up slipping right out of whatever clothes I'm wearing at the time."

Now it was Johnny and Ben's turn to exchanged glances, even Susan felt a little abashed saying it aloud, but apparently "appears human" had suddenly become a very important skill on her acting resume. /We current have more than enough supplies here to last for about a week so Susan clearly the most important thing you can be doing is practicing doing normal things in normal clothing until you're confident that there won't suffer wardrobe malfunctions which draw unwanted attention.

Johnny and Ben while Susan's doing that I could use a few helping hands in my lab, studying her jumpsuit. It seems like it was changed rather noticeably during the cosmic ray storm, and if I can find a way to duplicate that particular process then I should be able to manufacture ordinary-looking garments which will stretch along with her body."

For all his over exuberance, Susan had to admit that her brother had a good heart, or whatever was passing for one at the moment. "Sure thing, whatever kind of superscience you can whip up which lowers probability of my sister suddenly getting undressed without rhyme or reason is technology I support." Susan felt a strong compulsion to roll her eyes, even with superpowers it'd be take, a couple miracles (probably) four to keep all of this from ending painfully.

"All right then, I'll go upstairs and change into something less eye catching and either pass or toss my jumpsuit down to you depending upon how well I can handle myself out of it." Susan was seated on the opposite side of the table to the stairs leading up to the second floor. The normal, reasonable, thing to do would to have been to get up and walk around.

Her body however apparently viewed melting itself into a puddle of purple, sliding across the floor until it was clear of the table and then returning itself to normal as an equally reasonable approach.. The unplanned for sensation of being flat as a pancake for several moments just because her body wanted to take the shortest path it could find left her feeling slightly light headed, but to her credit Susan managed to get up stairs without distorting her body again.

She closed the door to her and Reed's room as she entered, and then after a moment's contemplation locked it jus as a bit of pointless self reassurance. Only then was she able to slowly start removing her jumpsuit. Underneath it, Susan's skin looked more or less perfectly normal, it didn't glisten like plastic, and it possessed no weird occult tattoos marking her as a servant of... Susan momentarily tried to imagine a demon of rubberyness and chuckled at the absurdity.

After taking a moment to examine her undergarment-clad body in a mirror for a few moments, she decided that if she was apparently going to be a superheroine she should look the part. It was only the work of a few moments concentration to do to her bust the kind of thing other women spent considerable amounts of money and time under some plastic surgeon's knife to accomplish.

Of course it was an equally quick process to evaluate her new assets and then return them to their original, more manageable size. Susan would just as soon not deal with the comments that such a noticeable change in her appearance would have doubtlessly drawn from one (probably Johnny) of her three male companions.

She quickly fished out a new set of clothes to replace the purple jumpsuit (a green jacket, blue shirt, and green pair of long pants in addition to undergarments) and then quickly made the necessary transfer of clothing, she wasn't sure why but even those breif moments of being undressed seemed incredibly unpleasant to her for some reason.

Still she managed it, and took another moment to inspect herself in the mirror after buttoning all the necessary buttons of the green jacket. After her last somewhat puerile display of her powers Susan decided to try something a bit more mature.

She looked into the mirror and tried to keep playing around with what the reflection showed her, until it was a woman's face that didn't look much at all like Susan Storm's. It wasn't hard (if it was a little unnerving), play with the size of her nose, how far apart and close to her nose her eyes were, just a few touches here and there went a long way towards making her look like someone else.

It pained her to admit that she actually giggled at this point, it figured that right after she'd just discovered that she'd suddenly had a face that could of her own will do more to change her appearance in moments then a team of makeup artists could do in hours that being an actress was ruled right out of the things she could do with her life. Okay righting wrongs, doing good and all that was important doubtlessly, but it also sounded like a lot of work...

Susan shook her head in dismay. If "a lot of work" was the biggest turn-off she could find with her brother's crazy idea then the two of them had more in common then she cared to admit. The entire possibly getting killed thing, now _there_ was a giant nit that she could pick at all day long without feeling ashamed of herself for doing so!

Not to mention if Reed was busy making cool gadgets for them then he wouldn't be able to focus on coming up with some kind of – something -- that would fix his current condition. Susan looked at herself firmly in the mirror, and knowing that it wouldn't hurt, slapped herself so hard she was left looking at what was behind her.

Even Reed Richards was not going to come up with a magical technological bullet which would slay his current problem. Even if he did build a fake robotic body for himself that he could somehow control with just his brain it'd still end up feeling like... she wasn't really being with the man she loved.

After literally getting her head on straight Susan sighed, a lot was resting on her shoulders at the moment and if she messed it up then she'd be screwing up the lives of her brother, a good friend, and Reed's as well. "Okay then, no more of this feeling sorry for myself crap, it's time to show the world I've got a pair ofovulating ovaries and just what I can do with them."

She knew that particular words were a mistake about five seconds after she finished uttering them. Because thinking about her ovaries made her think about being pregnant, particularly with Reed's children, something she had been so utterly certain would happen at some point in her future yesterday morning, and today she'd doubted she'd ever so much as see his face again, let along bare his children.

"Like I said, enough feeling sorry for myself, I'm a big girl with superpowers now, not a little slip who stuffs tissue paper into her bra berceuse she's worried if she's ever going to finally grow a decent pair of..." Susan stopped talking as the mirror before her gave her a perfect view of how the more she contemplated the fact that she'd been something of a late bloomer and not exactly thrilled about it, the more over endowed she became.

By the time she was finally able to stop it, her new absurdly large, shirt straining cleavage had undone several of her jacket's buttons, but luckily not torn her undergarments. A quick glare and a couple of thoughts along the necessary lines sent the two offending orbs on a hasty retreat back to their original size, leaving a bemused Susan Storm in their wake.

Her body was clearly at the moment just a bit too malleable for her own liking, if that latest display of her powers, going under the table, and slapping herself back in the car were any events to judge by, her subconscious thoughts could mold her body every bit as easily as her conscious ones. Remembering that she had come up to her room for a reason Susan began to gather up all of the parts of her purple jumpsuit, which didn't take long.

As she held them in her hands, an idea came to her. She increased the size of her right hand until it was big enough to hold all of the necessary garments, opened her door with her left hand, and extended her right arm out the door. "Here you go guys!" She knew the layout of the house well enough that she didn't have any trouble manuvering her hand in such a manner so as to be sure that when she opened it, its contents fell more or less upon the kitchen table.

Almost at once a cry of protest went up from below. "Eww gross! Do I drop my underwear on top of you sis?" Far more amused then ashamed at the image of her currently silver skinned brother ending up wearing one of her purple bras as a makeshift hat, she pulled her right arm back within the threshold of the room, and closed the door, preferring not to answer that particular question.

Instead she focused on the task at hand, her mission (should she choose to accept it) would be to walk from one side of the room to the other and back again without stretching, that seemed like a reasonable place to start. It was every bit as easy as she thought it would be, because she could walk from one side of the room to the other without needing or wanting to use her powers.

But, if she was shopping and someone else was standing in front of what she wanted... Sure enough just like Susan had expected her right arm had extended well beyond the cuff of her jacket. As she took a moment to glare at it, the thing fell limply to the ground until it finished retracting to its original length. Susan carefully looked her body over again, if she was going to be able to pull this off she'd apparently need to be able to think about not stretching in addition to all of her other thoughts around the clock.

A task which sounded much easier then it was, she'd have to try and find time to ask Reed how he managed to multitask so well, after he was done playing around with her uniform of course. For now, she'd just have to remind herself that if she'd managed to control her hyperactive brother she'd find a way to control her new body which seemed equally prone to good natured gestures which ended up having unwanted results.


	3. Chapter 3

An: I'd like to thank Jin Shirinue for giving this fic its first review and I hope there are many more to come!

Original Twist

Chapter three, Practice: In which Susan Storm discovers just how difficult it can be to make breakfast.

Susan played around with her powers all day more or less. She walked back and forth making sure no part of her body suddenly got longer, or shorter, or thinner, or thicker, or changed in any other way it could think of.

Of course even she would be willing to admit that about an hour or two of that however important was also happened to be all she could take before it became a very real possibility that the sheer tedium of it would wear her flat.

What she wanted to do after all that work was relax to the point that her entire body went flat as a piece of paper, but doing so at the moment would inevitably lead to her sliding right out of her clothing. So she decided to pay her three male companions a visit.

Susan opened the door to her and Reed's bedroom, looked at the stairs leading down, and look at the railing which she'd stretched a hand over not so long ago. Reed had spent a lot of time making sure that his lab was more or less soundproofed, so that whatever he did down there wouldn't disturb the other occupants of the house. By the same token, whatever happened up here wouldn't disturb anyone down there.

That particular knowledge assuaged Susan's guilt slightly as she slowly approached the railing knowing full well that what she was about to do was so foolish that Johnny would have given her a standing ovation if he was present. With a surreal calmness she braced herself, took a few steps back, ran forward, and vaulted over the railing. She lengthened her legs (her feet slipping out of her shoes in the process) in preparation for the landing which quickly arrived.

As it turned out making her self momentarily around nine feet tall didn't matter much because when she landed her overly long legs promptly folded up like an accordion leaving her in a tightly compacted bundle about four feet long. Luckily that particular problem resolved itself, unluckily it was by having her suddenly shoot forward like a compressed spring, slamming head first into a wall with comedic face- flattening results that would have been at least passably funny if they hadn't happened to her in real life.

Susan shook her head a few times until it once again possessed a third dimension, then surveyed the results of her leap of faith. Along with her shoes, she'd also slipped out of her socks, and jacket. Standing in place and using a pair of very long arms she retrieved the errant articles of clothing.

"And that's the second time I've 'died'; glad to know the first wasn't a fluke." A irrepressible smile followed those words from her lips. It didn't so much feel like she was cheating Death at this point, as the Grim Reaper had out of the kindness of his heart decided that he'd play without any pawns.

She quickly went about once again getting becoming fully dressed before heading downstairs. Almost the very moment after she finished knocking, Ben opened it. "Hey Susy, what's bothering you?" Susan once again tried to take in exactly was going on in Reed's lab, but as usual it was a lost cause.

"I think I've gone about as far as I can for now when it comes to practicing not stretching, so I was wondering if I could have my outfit back, or at least as much of it as you guys can spare at the moment." Her question was answered not by Ben, but by Reed. /Of course, Susan. We really one need one particular piece of the outfit, since the changes appear to be uniformly the same throughout it. Would you prefer to be without a glove or a boot?\

"Glove." It was an easy question to answer because walking around in only one boot would probably lead to her other leg lengthening to make up the difference, and reminders of how her powers were still playing tricks on her was exactly what she didn't need at the moment. Ben turned his back on her, probably to start gathering the parts of her uniform that weren't needed, and the moment he stepped out of the way, Johnny nailed her with a rolled-up ball made out of the top and bottom portions of her outfit. Though to judge from the scowl on his face he still considered this insufficient retribution.

"Sis, if you ever make your unmentionables come into contact with my body again, then I'll, give me a moment... got it! One night after you go to sleep I'll carry you out of bed and use you to launch paint filled water balloons at passing cars!" Not exactly the kind of threat that Susan was going to lose sleep over (she had plenty of other things to lose sleep over after all) but if it made her brother happy she wasn't about to quibble.

Ben passed said unmentionables, boots, and right glove over to her at which point with her arms full of clothing, Susan headed back upstairs. Standing in the middle of the kitchen Susan contemplated her choices, and decided that putting the jumpsuit on over her outfit couldn't do that much harm to either, though the latter was probably going to end up rather badly wrinkled.

It was a short task, and once she had it out of the way, Susan took a comforting sigh of relief, having the outfit on and knowing she couldn't slip out of her clothing gave her a sense of control, or at least a sense of having control of one part of her life. Her gaze drifted back and forth between the stairs, and the railing that she'd vaulted over a few minutes previously. "Time to make a fool of myself, again."

Susan wanted to make her legs longer, and sure enough looking down she could see that the ground seemed to keep getting farther and farther away. As she passed the eight feet mark (at least her guesstimation of it) a joke too corny to resist uttering aloud came to the forefront of her mind. "Who says women can't dunk?" Sure enough she kept getting taller and taller until her hips were more or less level with the railing.

What Susan tried to do was take a step forward, grab hold of the railing and then reduce her legs to their normal length. What ended up happening was that she took a step forward, accidentally bumping her head on the ceiling and more out of shock then pain she lost her sense of balance, and fell backwards, slamming against a wall, and luckily her huge legs didn't wreak too much havoc in the kitchen in the process.

She retracted them back to their normal length, straightened out her hair, fixed what she could (like pushing the table back to where it had been before she fell) and returned her gaze to the railing. What had started out as a simple test of her powers had now turned into a confrontation of wills, and Susan wasn't about to let herself get bested by a bunch of wood. There was no way she was taking the stairs now, even if she spent the rest of the day concocting one foolish plan after another that didn't work.

Since her legs had failed so spectacularly, it was clearly time to give her arms a chance. She quickly spun her left arm over her head, then at one key moment of her choosing stopped spinning it and just about quadrupled its length. Just like she'd hoped her arm flew up over the railing and landed on the second floor.

"Looks like a nice strong cast, now I've just got to reel it in properly..." Susan began to slowly decrease the length of her arm until it hung against the railing rather then drooping over it. Then she slowly tried to get it to tie itself into a proper knot. The task was complicated of course by the fact that she couldn't really see her arm, and thus was working more or less by thought alone, since every normal way she tired to command her left arm just led to it shaking like a limp noodle..

Eventually, however, she got it to tie itself in a knot and gave her left arm a quick tug to make sure it felt secure, then slowly approached the wall from which the railing sprang. "Great, now I'm about to start leaving footprints on the walls. I really am as bad as Johnny."

Susan shook her head again. At least she realized why what she was doing was a mistake, that had to count for something. Either way she continued to decrease the length of her left arm, until she was standing on the wall with her right hand wrapped around her left arm.

It was at this point that she realized the standard "arm over arm" approach for mountain climbing didn't work when you only had one hand to work with. But this turned out to be a moot point as Susan realized that if she kept decreasing the length of her left arm it more or less pulled the rest of her body along with it, until eventually she was able to climb over the railing and get to work untying her left hand.

Undoing the knot was a much easier process than tying it since not only could she see what she was working with, but her right arm helped. Only once both of her limbs were free and returned to their natural length did she sit down and ponder what she had achieved. "I just more or less supported my entire body's weight with my left arm..."

It was an epiphany worthy of being spoken aloud since even though she exercised regularly, she was fairly certain if she'd been able to lift one hundred plus pounds with one hand (let alone do it for an extensive period of time without breaking a sweat) she would have noticed sooner.

Susan slowly stood up and gave her head another good shake to help get her thoughts in order. It wasn't like this was that big a deal, after all she were pretty sure there were other women on earth who could lift a hundred and twenty pounds with one arm... "But I doubt any of them look like me."

There was the caveat, women who were capable of that kind of feat strength tended to have muscles all over the place. As she closed the door behind her Susan shrugged, if she was going to be a superheroine, then there really wasn't any such thing as being "too strong" was there?

Putting the entire issue aside Susan decided to go ahead and try what she'd been planning on doing since she'd decided she was done not stretching. She jumped into the air, and tried to curl herself into a ball.

Of course 'tried' was the operative word because she didn't succeed, and ended up hitting the ground as some kind of half-twisted, thoroughly-contorted shapeless monstrosity rather than a genuine sphere. Susan wiped away the changes this failed attempt had made in her body as easily as one would clear away the contents of an Etch-A-Sketch, before trying again without coming any closer to success.

"Third time is the charm..." That was what she told herself, but once again Susan wound up lying on the floor, nothing but a tangled mess. "Okay fine, let's see if I can become a ball, then I'll worry about my ability to do it inside a strict time limit." She got her body back to normal and sat down on the bed, then tried for a fourth to curl herself into a ball.

Now that it wasn't a race between her and gravity, she realized that one of the reasons why she'd failed those first three times. The outfit she was wearing under that jumpsuit could only be crumpled so far and it certainly couldn't be crumpled into something the size of a baseball.

After finding it also protested at being the size of a basketball she finally just went for beachball, it wasn't impressive, but she'd managed to turn herself into a largish sphere with her face on it. "Okay, so how do I move?"

Susan felt a section of her body suddenly stretch and push against the bed sending her bouncing off of it and onto the floor. At which point she finally bounced up and down much to her satisfaction. At least she was satisfied by the first five bounces, by the sixth her stomach (wherever it was currently located) was starting to protest and by the tenth she was rapidly uncurling herself so that she didn't find out how she felt around the fifteenth.

The process of going from malformed half-ball half-blob back to a normal looking woman took longer this time around, but she accomplished it none the less. Unfortunately even after standing up perfectly straight Susan's found her neck still insisted on tilting first up then down as if she was still bouncing. "Well that's two more things I can do with my powers: I can bounce, and I can make myself want to vomit, go me."

Once the green drained from her face Susan slowly clambered to her feet and decided to give something else a try. In fact she wound up spending the rest of the day giving something else a try: twisting her legs into springs, twisting her arms into springs in the middle of a cartwheel, several more attempts at bouncing, none of which turned out to be all that remarkable, seeing how quickly she could stretch, how easily she could stretch multiple limbs at the same time, how easily she could stretch multiple limbs in different directions at the same time, everything needed to be tested.

She took a pair of breaks, one for lunch and one for dinner, but Ben and Johnny were apparently still busy working in the lab with Reed during both of those breaks, and she wasn't about to argue that they needed to synchronize their eating schedules. Time apart from each other had its own rewards, especially considering they weren't that likely to get a lot of it given the size of the house the four were living in.

She finished up her day with a long hot bath that felt so wonderful she worried she might relax enough to end up getting sucked down the drain when she let the water out, dried off and quickly went back to bed for another night of tossing and turning before finally falling asleep.

--

"Good morning Susan." Susan's blue eyes shot open in record time as she came face to face with the man whose kiss had awoken her. "Reed, you're back!" Reed smiled at her, he was dressed in his usual outfit of shirt, labcoat, and long pants, and looking down Susan saw she was dressed in a t-shirt and pair of shorts. "Of course I am, you didn't think I'd leave you to wallow in such a pitiable condition, did you?" Susan felt her eyebrows twitching just a bit more than she wanted them to.

"Last time I checked you were the one who was in a truly pitiable condition." Reed gave her a quick kiss on the lips. "Please, it was my pleasure to look after you even when you running a fever of a hundred and three degrees." Susan slowly ran a bare hand along her lips as if to confirm that indeed they had in fact been kissed, and then pressed them to her forehead. "A fever?"

Reed nodded reassuringly. "Yes, a bad one, if it had gotten much worse I wouldn't have seriously considered taking you to a hospital, but you pulled through and dropped below a hundred degrees before I feel asleep last night." Her head did feel a little warmer than normal. "But what about the flight to the moon?"

A slight shrug was the only answer she received at first. "Well, conditions seemed to be ideal, but after you came down with that fever I decided that I'd just as soon rather not be out in space while your were in such poor condition here on earth." Susan shook her head, this wasn't right...

"No, that's not what happened, we went into space, and the we all got superpowers because of this unnatural strong surge of cosmic rays..." Reed pressed a hand firmly to her forehead. "Superpowers? Just listen to yourself for a moment Susan, clearly that was nothing more than a delusion you suffered because of the fever."

Susan shook her head and stood up, sliding out of the bed. "No it wasn't, I'm sure of it. If all that took place in my head, then why can I do this?" At "this" her hands and legs began to grow longer, until she practically towered over Reed who was still seated on the bed. "Susan... what happened to you?"

The four elongated limbs retracted back to their orrigional length though Susan remained seated. "Like I said, go into space, get bombarded with cosmic rays, and then presto, superpowers! It's crazy, but it happened!" Reed got off the bed and scuttled away from her. "Look at yourself, YOU'RE A MONSTER!"

Reed ran from the room leaving her staring after him in sadness and bemusement. "Reed..." She tried to go after him, but after she took one step she suddenly found herself sinking into the floor. Her legs had turned into a puddle, and trying to walk was like trying to move when she was up to her thighs in muck.

She watched with a strange detachment as her finger grew longer. She hadn't been trying to do that, and no matter how she tried to correct them they continued to dribble downwards into the puddle of rapidly- growing pink flesh.

As she looked down she found that everything south of her belly button had sunk into the puddle, and she was still 'melting' for lack for a better word. Her breasts, her neck, and then she had time left for only one word. "Reed..."

That word spoken, her lower jaw sank into the ooze making it impossible to speak, then her upper jaw, and her eyes descended into the ooze and it became impossible to see. Life became a paradox, a study in contradiction, Susan had no mouth, and yet every fiber of her being yearned to scream.

--

The sound that left Susan's mouth (when she discovered that she once again had a mouth) could not be summed up by any word or collection of words, it was a primal shriek of terror.

Only after she'd expelled that excess of fear was she able to take stock of the situation. She was a shapeless pink blob on the floor, well, mostly shapeless, she had eyes, a mouth, and all the other trappings of a face. She easily extended a pair of arms from the blob which reassured her enough that getting dressed became a more pressing priority than reaffirming her own humanity.

That was a nice thing to think about, to only be worried about normal things in the morning like getting dressed. Of course no sooner had she reflected on the banality of the task which she thought should be first on her list of things to take care of then she realized that trying to dress her current body would be something of a waste of time, so maybe superpowered concerns came first after all.

--

"So sis, have you considered, I don't know, renting yourself out as an alarm clock? Because, well, upon reflection I hope you don't have a connivent gag in your room, but maybe you could try going to sleep with your face towards the pillow so that it muffles the screams.

In short, if this is going to be a regular occurrence, like the rooster crows at sunrise, my sister screams at six, I'd like to know about it ahead of time." Susan brooded in her chair, once again doing that nifty little crossing her arms twice trick.

"The first time was simply reality hitting me like a ton of bricks, and the second was a bad dream. Nightmares happen to everyone and unless you want me to start digging up some of yours we'll be changing the subject right about now." Sure enough, a combination of polite prompting mixed with a none to subtle reminder that Susan had literally a lifetime's knowledge of some of Johnny's most embarrassing moments proved effective to get her brother to act like a reasonable human being.

"In that case, why don't we move onto the more important things in life, money and food. I don't know about you guys, but I left my wallet back in my apartment, and I'd raise a couple of eyes checking back into it at the moment." Ben's glare slowly worked its way around the room. "I left my wallet _sans _keys in the glove box of my truck, figure the rest out for yourselves."

Susan got her arms straight and motioned towards the master bedroom. "Since Reed was bringing keys to the car, and house with him I've still got all my own personal effects upstairs. Of course my bank account isn't exactly overflowing, but I could probably use my credit cards for a few months before I have to worry about the interest eating me alive.

So we're pretty much set for the short term. But beyond that, well Reed you're obviously going to be our primary source of liquid assets. So where do we stand when it comes to us getting our hands on your money?"

Susan mentally superimposed the image of Reed scratching his chin, or otherwise doing, well, something, just because it made her feel more natural. /Getting my money is going to be tricky, something I think we already know. That said I do have a plan for how we can deal with this particular problem, but it will have to wait untill Susan is confident that she can walk around in public without using her powers.\

Susan leaned back in her chair and sighed, then she noticed that one moment she'd been looking at the ceiling, the next she was looking at the floor, to make it even weirder she was looking at the floor upside down. It took her about five seconds to figure out what had happened, she'd leaned back, and her neck and gone longer and longer untill her head had landed on the floor, leading to her current situation.

She quickly reeled in her neck and sighed. "Sorry about that. Well considering I've got my jumpsuit and I've eaten breakfast I'll go back to practicing while you three boys take care of doing weird science in the basement." Without another word, she headed upstairs taking the stairs like a normal person.

Once she'd closed the door behind her, Susan looked into the mirror and nodded slowly. "There are only two ways that this can possibly end: either I'm going to control my powers, or they're going to control me. If it's the former then I'm going to be a person and I can move on with my life, not to mention help the others move on as well, if it's the latter then I'm going to be a puddle for the rest of my days. I'll control my power, I'll be a person!"

She turned her back on the mirror and bounced (she would probably never walk on the moon, but Susan had noticed that every so often she'd take a normal step and her feet would bounce off the floor propelling her forward) to the bed landing more or less in the middle of it looking up at the ceiling. "Of course saying all that doesn't instantly doesn't make it true. Too bad this isn't a movie, then I'd only be one _Survivor _montage away from suddenly having everything fall perfectly into place."

/It's the eye of the tiger, it's the thrill of the fight, rising up to the challenge of our rival...\ Susan's neck twisted around looking for the source of the music that had suddenly sprung into her head. "Reed, you're not in the room right now are you?" /Not at the moment. I'm down in the lab, but my psychic powers are getting stronger, I seem to be able to pick up your thoughts even when your not in the room...\

Susan followed her brother's advice and used a pillow to muffle a short scream of irritation. Once it had passed she tossed the thing aside, ready talk like a normal person. "Reed, that is very, very, disturbing. To start with, you really couldn't sing back when you had lungs. To continue, if I wanted overly-idealistic theme music, well there's a stereo in here for a reason. To conclude, you reading my mind when we were in the same room was weird enough, doing it when we're on different floors, that's a little bit of Ministry of Truth wants you to know that Big Brain is watching you."

There was a quick embarrassed mental chuckle. /Sorry, I was just trying to help.\ Susan shook her head, and slid off the bed. "Okay, well here's how it is Reed, if you want to help me next time, give me a polite mental prompting. After that, you ask if I want to talk about anything. I don't care if you already know what's on my mind, ask me about if I want to talk about it, rather than just jumping on board my train of thought with a bandanna tied around your face and a six-gun in either hand."

/That's a rather nice turn of phrase, you know, I think its the first time I've ever heard of someone making a connection between train of thought and train robberies.\ Susan got up off the bed and stood up. "Probably because up until you came along, people weren't able to plunder them very efficiently. Now would you mind leaving me alone with just my thoughts?" /Not particularly...\

It would have been nice to say that she could feel Reed proverbially exiting through whatever back door he had taken into her mind, but it also would have been a lie. Susan carefully approached the room's mirror, running her hands through her hair in the process. "Great, just great all around, I love how easy it suddenly is for me to let loose with both barrels on the man who is worse off than all of us put together."

Of course it wasn't like she didn't suddenly have a lot more on her shoulders as well, but if nothing else she still had shoulders. Looking away from the mirror Susan began to walk a slow circle around the room. So what was she going to practice today, stretching when she wanted to, or not stretching when she didn't want to?

Stretching won out in the end. It seemed reasonable enough that she was more likely to truly control her powers by familarizing herself with them than by pretending they didn't exist. Besides, if this entire superhero thing did somehow manage to get off the ground, then the more she could do with her powers the better their chances of success and survival were.

That dour thought was quickly balanced out by a frivolous one, it was more fun to stretch than not to. There was a strange sense of intoxicating freedom that came with it every time she broke free from the narrow confines of a symmetrical body with four distinct appendages. As Susan's eyes wandered slowly around the room, she couldn't help but scoff.

It seemed much too small for her, even though it had seemed plenty spacious three nights ago when she'd gone to bed with her arms wrapped around Reed's chest. But now she was a superheroine, and so it was only appropriate that she resize her ego according to her new position in life.

Thinking back to the conversation she'd had yesterday a pair of thoughts slowly worked their way through Susan's mind as she stretched her arms across the room to pick up a comb that had been sitting beside her bed, before running it through her blonde hair: what exactly should her theme music sound like, and did she want it to be instrumental or have words?

--

After another day of practicing with her powers, Susan had come to one conclusion about her life. She wanted her theme song to be an instrumental piece, it would be classier that way.

Of course as she put her head down on a pillow and wrapped her extended limbs around the pile of sheets she still clung to every night like a child to its safety blanket, thoughts she would rather have left unthought let themselves in uninvited. If things had been different, if Reed still had a body, what would he think of her new one?

In response to that thought Susan promptly grabbed Reed's unused pillow and began the utterly fruitless task of trying to cave her own head in with it. Why did she have did she have to keep thinking those kinds of thoughts when Reed might be listening in?

Eventually after about twenty whacks she put the pillow down fluffed it out, and then buried her face in it, trying to fill her nostrils with whatever remnants of his scent still lingered upon it.

--

The dreams Susan found herself having after gaining her powers continued to run a veritable gauntlet that night. Her first dream, chasing after her brother had been surreal, and rather amusing when looked at through the lens of hindsight. Her second had been nightmarish, both that Reed might reject her, and that her powers would find a way to turn on her, to consume her.

Susan's third dream on the other hand was pure bliss. Of course just like everything else in her life, it came with a price. When she opened her eyes she immediately spat out a most unladylike word, though to her credit it was only spoken rather than belted out at the top of her lungs.

She was strewn about the room like purple confetti: wrapped around every bed post, over the bed, under the bed, she could even feel some of her body that had gone and tied itself around the base of the toilet after sneaking into the bathroom in by slipping underneath the door.

Then she noticed something odd, she tried to confirm it by pressing a hand to her forehead, but at the moment the closest hand she could see was currently tied around one of the bedposts. She tried to walk over to it, but had absolutely no idea where her feet where, leaving her with no choice but to more or less inch along across the ground and wonder how exactly snakes made it look so easy.

Only when she got to the side of the bed and started wondering how exactly she was going to move upwards in her current condition did she realize that despite her current condition, she still hadn't reached the limits of how far she could stretch. So Susan further increased the length of her body growing taller untill she lay flat on the bed, and finally pressed the hand to her face.

This wasn't normal, okay a lot of her current situation was a very long way from "normal" but after a dream like that she should have been sweating, or be able to feel how her hair was dampened by the sweat she had already produced. Instead, nothing.

Just to be sure, she used an extra long tongue to carefully feel out her forehead. Sure enough, there was none of the salty aftertaste that sweat would have left behind. "Weird, really really weird..." Then Susan looked around the room and chuckled to herself. "Yeah, the girl who looks like human Silly String is currently worried about the fact that she isn't sweating; that's one great set of priorities I've got..."

Then Susan decided to get to work on freeing herself, starting with the hand that was right before her. It was tied in a complicated knot around the bed post, made even more complicated by the fact that she didn't have any of her traditional appendages to work with.

Drawing in a deep breath Susan opened up her mouth and once again let her tongue stretch and slowly probe the knot in question untill it was able to locate a weakness in it, and then get to work undoing it. /I am in full control of my powers, and I'm not thinking about first base. In fact while I'm telling myself reassuring lies that even I don't believe for a moment, I'm also the Queen of England.\

To her credit even with certain distractions impairing her ability to focus Susan managed to get her hand free, or at least undo that one knot which caused the arm the hand was attached to start growing shorter in length untill it hit another knot that was tied around the dresser.

"On second thought, you uncooperative limbs can rot here in the bedroom, I'm going to go have breakfast weather you like it or not!" Turning her back on the tangled mass that most of her body had become, Susan inched her way off the bed, thinned herself down and stretched across the room and underneath the door.

Then she promptly went back to inching herself along until she came to the railing which now seemed to resemble the bars of a jail cell. Squeezing through them was easy of course, and then it was just a matter of lengthening her body untill it hit the floor. After which she winded her way across it, stretched up and planted herself on the table.

She was the only one in the room at the moment, the others were probably still asleep and waiting for her to let loose with an earsplitting scream which would serve as their wake-up call. As she was looking around the table that a strange thought occurred to Susan. "I have absolutely no idea where my legs and certain other parts of my body are at the moment, so if I most profoundly hope that I don't need to use the bathroom any time soon."

As she said the words she folded the two halves of her body against one another temporarily like the hands she wasn't currently able to make use of. Then she waited for the inevitable ironic twist that simply had to follow those words of her bladder (where ever it was) protesting about how she had to get some other missing portion of her anatomy somewhere else and get undressed quickly if she didn't want to soil herself.

She waited, but strangely enough the universe decided to cut her some slack this time around. Which just made Susan suspect that the sensation would arrive when she was halfway through breakfast and starting to enjoy herself, but it wasn't like there was anything she could do about it. "So what am I going to eat like this, and how am I going to eat it?"

Susan's eyes locked on the boxes of cereal that as always were on top of the kitchens refrigerator, simple, filling, and not requiring her to cook it in any way. She rose from the table (it was strangely easy to balance her body upright like some kind of snake) drifted over towards the refrigerator, wrapped herself about the handle of the freezer to help balance, and then managed to curl her body around an apparently half-filled box of cereal and carefully undid all of her actions to deposit it on the table.

When it came to getting something to drink obviously the first step was getting herself around the handle of the refrigerator and pulling it open to see what her choices were. There was still a quarter-full jug of milk that seemed it would suit her nicely. Feeling herself start to shiver incessantly as she plunged literarily head first into a world that was only a few degrees above zero, Susan quickly bound herself around her prize and extracted it.

After putting the milk bottle on the table she slammed the refrigerator door shut, and dropped to the ground where she began to slowly rub herself back and forth against the wooden floorboard, a partly-successful attempt to warm herself. Only after about a full minute of that did she once again return to the table an examine her meal in the making.

"Let's see, I still sort of need a bowl and a cup, except how exactly am I planning on pouring myself a drink like this...?" In the end she decided to forgo the niceities, dipping a part of her own body into the cereal box like a giant scoop: pulling some of its contents out, depositing it on the table, and proceeding to feast upon it.

After doing that, she wrapped her lips around the top of the milk jug, worked them underneath the thing, and then carefully rotated them untill it came lose. Spitting the cap out, she tried to lap the milk from the jug with an extra long tongue, but found that it was harder than cats made it look.

So she plunged her entire head through the narrow opening of the jug, and tried to lap at its contents again, this time achieving better results. She repeated the process, alternating between scoop of cereal and slurps of milk and was actually feeling rather proud of herself up untill during one slurp of milk she suddenly found herself being pulled out of the jug by a pair of very strong hands.

"My sister not using a glass and just drinking straight from the container? I quite honestly can't find the words." Susan glared at her brother as she quickly licked off a white droplets which had remained on her lips. "How about 'excuse me older sister, you seem to be having a little trouble is there anything I can do to help' did those ever occur to you?"

Johnny altered his grip on Susan, carefully holding her about the neck as if she might turn on him at any moment (it was a distinct possibility, but if came about it wouldn't matter where Johnny's hands were) smiling at her all the while. "Hey you should just be grateful that I didn't trip over some part of you and fall thus waking up Ben and Reed, assuming Reed still sleeps.

I mean you're always harping on me about leaving my toys on the floor, don't you have the decency not to leave your body laying all over the place?" Susan was not amused, not even a little bit. "Look I'm a little out of sorts at the moment and I just wanted to eat breakfast before I had to worry undoing the double Windsor that my right leg did around the nightstand."

Johnny nodded, yanking Susan's neck up and down in the process. "Oh I know, I could tell by the fact that you were turning the process of eating a meal into a one-woman performance art piece, have you thought about taking it on the road?" It was time to pull out a little conversational judo. "If we take my exploits on the road, then we won't have time to be superheroes. Now would you let me go back to eating breakfast?"

Johnny let go of Susan's neck causing it to land limply on the table. "Sure thing I'll even help..." Johnny's idea of "helping" was tipping over the box of cereal so that the rest of its contents fell squarely on Susan's head. She promptly extracted her head from the mountain of cereal it'd been buried under. At which point Johnny had the "good" graces to get out a bowl, fill it with milk and place it on the floor.

"You realize that you're going to pay for that?" Johnny shrugged, his smile not fazed in the slightest. "I know, but honestly, I honestly can't help myself. Just the fact that you're currently scooching around the kitchen like a cross between the world's biggest slug and snake is funny in and of itself, but then watching you do stuff makes it even funnier.

I mean it's like watching the scene in _A Night At The Opera_, bunch of guys in a small space, funny, but the more guys who get shoved into that same small space and the more stuff they try to do in it, the funnier and funnier it gets. You know the floor is starting to get pretty dirty, maybe I should get out the vaccuum and let you have a go at it."

Susan testily sank most of her body into a chair, in an approximation of sitting. "You know what I think is funny Johnny? My arms are upstairs, I'm not quite sure where they are of course, but I can still get them to do anything my hands would normally do. So at the moment, maybe I'm making an obscene gesture with them, maybe I'm not, you'll never know will you?"

Johnny leaned back in his chair for a moment scratching his chin. "Well off the top of my head I'd say you're not because I can't imagine my older sister ever flipping anyone the bird. But since I can't see you doing it, then it doesn't really count as you doing it, so you might actually be doing it, its sort of like swearing when you're in a soundproof booth, isn't it?

You know you're right, that is a puzzler, but not really funny, more of a riddle than a joke. Stringing yourself over someone's property on Halloween, now that would be funny!" Susan did naught but glare at her brother, and he got the message. Johnny bent down, and placed the bowl of milk in front of her. Susan kept glaring at him. Johnny got out a glass and filled it with the bowl's contents.

"There, happy now, or do I have to sprinkle it with eleven herbs and spices before lighting it on fire?" "You could get me a straw." Johnny did. "And I assume that Queen Susan of the Nile also doesn't want me to every talk to anyone about what I saw today unless I want to face mutually assured embarrassment?"

Susan wrapped her lips around the straw and was able to drink in a much less undignified manner. "That and help me unwrap myself." Johnny shrugged, stood up and began to get to work preparing his own breakfast. "Seems fair enough considering our situation. Who cares if I can't tell anyone, I can still just smile at you for the rest of your life and you'll know what I'm thinking about."

Her brother's words proved quite prophetic as Susan couldn't do anything but brood while Johnny went about making and eating breakfast, practically humming the entire time.

Eventually he joined her in her room and whistled at the sight of her body. "So sis, short of getting sucked into an jet engine in midflight how did you managed to pull this off?" Susan turned her back on her brother as she made her way over to the dresser that still had an arm wrapped around it. "I had another dream, and when I woke up I was like this."

Sometimes her brother could be ENTIRELY too perceptive, and ussualy it was in maters where his ability to follow orders was all that mattered.. "Forgive me for noticing that you didn't say another 'bad' dream. So was this a gooooooood dream?" He stretched 'good' out to obscene proportions and threw in a wink, which basically did everything but openly ask if it was the kind of dream was so good that it half justified half demanded an after dream cigarette.

"You know it's weird how remarkably quickly you are to start mocking what I do in here, and yet also look ready to either lose your lunch or exit the room so fast you break the sound barrier whenever I'm the one who brings it up." Johnny just kept smiling, as he began to undo the knot her leg was tied in around one of her bedposts. "There's no secret to that, it's just like anything else in life. It's easy to poke fun at when you know there's no truth behind it.

It's the same reason that its funny to watch some political satirist claim that somebody or other eats babies, but when the pictures of them with a placenta hanging out of their mouth start showing up, the humor well runs dry." Susan's eyebrows twitched, but she had to finish using her tongue to undo the knot in her arm before she could use it to shape words. "So if I started knocking boots with Ben you'd be quiet about it?"

Johnny had been working on untangling her arm, when he heard those words and in seconds he went from delicately uniting a knot to crushing the wooden bedpost it was wrapped around between his metal fingers. Looking up from the broken bits of wood, his silvery face seemed to blush somewhat.

"Sorry about that. Anyway, pay very close attention to what I'm about to say Susan, because for one of the few times in my life I'm going to be one hundred percent serious. If you started 'knocking boots' with Ben, then you wouldn't be my sister.

Not in the sense of I'd tried to get emancipated or whatever it is you do to get yourself legally separated from your older sister, but you wouldn't be acting like the Susan Storm I grew up with. I mean we've been through a lot together, and at no point did you ever knuckle under and take the easy way out.

Remember the time when I was nine and I had some trouble with a pair of bullies at school? The sad thing is that since that was after Mom died and Dad left, so I didn't have anyone to run to for help but you. The hilarious thing was the look on those guys faces after you were done with him."

Susan remembered that particular event, and she couldn't help but smile. "Yeah, though in retrospect it was a mistake. You apparently enjoyed watching them get their just desserts so much that you decided to be as annoying as possible to make sure I had to pick fights to defend you as frequently as possible."

Johnny just shrugged, as he got to work on the final bedpost which had her other arm (in her current state Susan wasn't sure which arm or which leg was tied to what) wrapped around it. "Well, you know what they say, dog bites man is old news, but man bites dog is a front-page story. Even if you were older then them, some of them were taller then you, and there were two of them."

Susan wiggled her body in another substitution for the more conventional shrug. "Personally I'm just glad I got away with it, the fight was pretty easy considering I'd though ahead enough to put a good- sized brick in my purse." Johnny chuckled again as he got to work carefully freeing one of her appendages from a lamp on the nightstand. "Like I said sis, my entire life you've never seemed particularly willing to settle for just 'good enough' whether or not you realize it.

That's more or less exactly what I'd consider Benjamin Grimm where you're concerned, good enough. I mean it as a compliment, he might be ten years older then you but he's still in great shape. He puts up with me fairly well which says that he must be a pretty decent guy all things considered. He's not exactly rich, but we've managed to get buy on a shoestring before.

So as I see it, the only reason you'd go after Reed rather than him is because you really do love Mr. Science is Awesome. Coincidently, I can only think of two reasons why a guy like him would agree to let you live in his house; either you're useful to have around to help with his lab experiments, or he really loves you.

Frankly, I don't think you turned into Marie Curie while I wasn't looking, so it's probably that he's in love with you. Yeah, your current situation isn't exactly convenient, but still, seriously, just look at yourself, sis. You woke up, found yourself more or less totally hog-tied but you wanted to have breakfast before you dealt with it, and when I came in, even if you were making a fool of yourself you were also getting something to eat. Are you going to let this little snag beat you?"

Susan grinned as finally managed to fully free her right hand. "I suppose I have to give you some credit for that analysis of what our relationship used to be like. You know Johnny, you can be really mature when you want to, you should try it more often. That said, I think Reed being nothing more than a living brain is considerably more than a 'little snag', all things considered."

Johnny pumped his arms in victory after managing to successfully untangle his sister's left leg. "Hey, if there's one thing that a lifetime of reading comic books has taught me, it's that nobody is ever really dead except Bruce Wayne's parents.

Everyone else, anybody with pattern recognition skills would start laying bets on when they'll come back even before they shove the probably empty casket into the ground. The status quo is like a black hole: you can try to move away from it as much as you want, but sooner or everything gets dragged back to it, and the status quo in this situation is Reed Richards having a body.

Sooner or later, a rip in the time space continuum will open up, or he'll get struck by lightning, or we'll stumble across some glowy rock from space, or he'll invent some kind of fancy doohickey that somehow fixes it, one way or another it's bound to happen. " Now that she had a hand to work with, freeing her other was significantly easier, not to mention she could work and talk at the same time.

"We're not living in a comic book, Johnny." Her brother responded by undoing the last knot in her other leg, but pulling it out a little longer and waving it around while he parroted her words back at her. "We're not living in a comic book, Johnny! Come on sis, wake up and smell the ink!

Trust me, once we set ourselves up, especially if we do it without secret identities, I give it a week at most before some weird guy in a crazy costume with outrageous powers dedicate himself to our destruction, and I bet he'll even have a bunch of minions who all look more or less exactly the same due to their crazy dress code which will doubtlessly include some kind of mask so we don't have to acknowledge that they're individual living, breathing, human beings in the process of pounding them into unconsciousness."

Johnny let go of Susan's leg, and for the first time that day she was finally able to stand on her own two feet. "Well, I hope you're right, but I'm not gonna believe it till I see it." Johnny nodded, and then headed for the door since he'd finished his job. "Don't worry about it sis. I haven't been found wrong about comic books yet. It'll happen sooner or later, till then, I really do hope that you have good dreams."

After going and saying the most absolutely perfect thing that Susan could ever imagine him doing, Johnny proceeded to smile and ruin it. "Because until I get to say 'I told you so' they're all you're getting." He closed the door in time that the fist Susan sent rocketing his way hit it rather then him, though it doubtlessly would have bounced off either way.

End Chapter.


	4. Chapter 4

Original Twist Chapter Four: Money, in which Reed Richards provides the capital and Susan Storm makes plans to spend it.

Susan had been faced with a task that needed to be completed for the good of humanity. It had been difficult, there had been considerable danger involved should she fail. She had needed to rely on every scrap of knowledge about and ounce of control she'd gained concerning her powers over the last few of practice. She had been like a spy in an action movie, entering into a situation where at any moment she might find herself completely and utterly surrounded armed with naught but her wits. Under such pressure lesser women might have found themselves being metaphorically crushed into quivering blobs, but Ultra Woman had persevered, lived up to her name, and accomplished her objectives.

Susan Storm had gone shopping.

"Here's the first two bags. I've got more in the car that I'll go take care of unloading if you can handle storing the perishables." Johnny and Ben looked at Susan as if she was a beautiful angel who had descended from the sky accompanied by chorus of heavenly trumpets. Ben had even gone so far as to give her a "You did a bang-up job Susy," followed by a quick peck on the cheek.

Up until that point Susan had always assumed that Ben and her relationship had been akin to an older brother and a younger sister. That kiss however was exactly what she didn't need while she was still trying to figure out where she stood in relation to Reed Richards.

So, without saying a word she left to get the other bags. There were several bags, so it took her about half a dozen trips. Midway through the process Susan momentarily day dreamed that she could get this job done a lot quicker if she transformed into a blob, lassoed multiple bags with tendrils of her body, and then oozed along with the bags in tow..

But doing that would have been tempting fate. Luckily after all of her practice, just thinking about such a thing was no longer cause to try and make them manifest. She had her powers down to the point that her body was only stretched against her will when she was under considerable pressure, though it could be either emotional, or something much simpler, like how having an anvil dropped on her would put enough physical pressure on her body to momentarily squash it flat.

So, two bags at a time, she managed to bring all of the groceries inside, and the two of her companions who still possessed bodies took care of them from there. Once she'd brought all the food inside, Susan started to get undressed. She tossed aside the blue gloves and jacket she'd been wearing, before doing the same with the red shirt she'd had on underneath it, before finally removing her green long pants and boots.

With any sort of civilian clothing discarded, she was left in just her purple jumpsuit. Wearing it underneath her outfit had seemed like a good idea, since that way if the worst should happen and she lost both her composure and ability to keep herself upright, she'd be able to ooze over to someplace quiet and work on pulling herself together without having to worry about getting slapped with indecent exposure charges after she did it.

Her journey over and done with, Susan sank into a chair and let go of the tightly held control she'd been imposing over her body during the entire trip. Before she knew it she'd become little more than a large purple towel draped over one of the chairs in the kitchen with vaguely humanoid features. /You did it...\

Susan couldn't nod since she was flat as a sheaf of paper, so she just blinked her eyes twice. "It wasn't fun though. But at least I just reset the clock on how long we have before we start worrying about finding enough to eat. What have you accomplished lately?"

Susan had managed to outgrow the reflex of looking around for where exactly Reed was whenever he started talking to her. It had been especially unnerving during the shopping trip where she kept getting farther and farther away from him and yet they remained in contact. At least for a while, after putting some distance between them, Reed had officially said she was too far away for him to maintain their mental link, but still it was somewhat disturbing to know that she had to be over a mile away before Reed couldn't peer inside her head.

/Well thanks to Ben and Johnny doing some online research, I've located something that could serve quite nicely as our headquarters.\ Susan current appearance wasn't exactly designed to let her give non-verbal clues to what was on her mind so she just kept blinking. After all, Reed couldn't actually see what she was doing, probably. "Okay, tell me about it."

She was prepared for more words, but she wasn't prepared for the fact that she suddenly found herself getting an eagle-eye view of the building being described. /The Baxter Building is several dozen stories tall, and was apparently built for purposes that I can currently best define as 'a tax dodge' so its current owners would be only too eager to sell.

It will doubtlessly require some rather severe modification, including all of the latest security measures before it is truly ideal, but compared to the alternative of building such a place from scratch, this would be much quicker.\ Susan took a deep breath, and as she did so her body inflated back into being three- dimensional and more or less properly human.

"Wow, you can do pictures now. That's new." The response she got was the last one she expected. /I can do pictures?\ It was a very rare event that Susan Storm had to explain something to Reed Richards, but it did happen occasionally, though usually such situations involved social niceties that Reed had previously been too busy being brilliant to pay much attention to.

"Yeah, when you were talking about it, I could literally see it in my mind's eye." There was a very long silence while Reed contemplated this information. /I didn't intend to, and neither Ben or Johnny have mentioned anything like that previously. Of course, it wouldn't be particularly farfetched to theorize that my mind is more intimately connected to yours than to either of theirs'. Which in turn would explain why our psychic connection is stronger, and thus allows for visual as well as auditory information.\

Susan deeply wished that Reed hadn't chosen to use the phrase "intimately" to describe the state of their minds; it just made Susan remember that much more forcefully when that word could have been used with a different connotation to describe their bodies instead. "Okay then, I suppose like everything else we can do with our powers, sooner or later there will be a time when we find that particular ability useful.

For now, I'm more interested in how we're going to get the money to buy this place, since you lost your wallet when you lost your body. If you still had your credit card, then I suppose I could use it to get money from your bank account out of an ATM. Not that it would do us much good in the long run, since people are going to sit up and pay attention if a not-particularly famous actress buys an entire skyscraper with several briefcases full of hundred-dollar bills."

Luckily while she'd been practicing with her powers Reed had evidently been doing what he did best, thinking. /Don't worry about it, Susan; so long as you can avoid accidentally stretching in public, I know exactly how we can easily get our collective hands on my money.\

Susan leaned her upper body forwards, about three feet forwards, in fact so that she could properly rest her elbows on nearby table, and her chin on her hands. "Just for my edification, since I know you can never resist a chance to explain something, could I have a more or less step-by-step breakdown of what the plan is from where we currently stand?"

Sure enough, this time around she barely had time to blink before an explanation started drifting through her mind. /Step one is gaining easy, or at least easier access to my finances. Step two is acquiring the Baxter Building. Step three is purchasing all the new equipment we're going to need, both for superheroics and my new lab. Step four is the creation of costumes which posses the unique properties of your purple jumpsuit. Step five is the development of a more appropriate method of transportation for our group. Step six is speaking with the governor, the mayor, chief of police, basically anyone who matters, since we need to make sure that all the important people who might take umbrage at our activities understand we're only trying to help. Step seven is introducing ourselves to people in general. Step eight is of a rather ill-defined nature at the moment, but I'd describe it as 'thrilling superheroics' for lack of more precise terminology.\

Susan undid the stretch she pulled off a few moments ago, she couldn't actually feel her back getting sore from the way it was being bent, but she couldn't help but feel like it should have been. "Let me guess, step nine is profit?" Of course, much like she expected this went down as one more attempt at humor which fell flat in the face of the unique way Reed's mind worked.

/I wouldn't consider profit to be all that important, though I suppose it wouldn't hurt given the cost of the Baxter Building and all the new equipment and materials I'm going to be purchasing. So are you ready to commence the first part of step one?\ Susan slowly rose to her feet and flexed using her powers to make it look like she had bulging biceps that were exceptionally ridiculous in comparison with her otherwise unremarkable build.

"As opposed to what? Needing to go upstairs to my room and faint dramatically from the stress that accompanied my barely successful efforts?" It felt nice to be useful, or maybe that was just what she told herself as a way of staying sane after more or less a lifetime of having no choice but to be extremely useful to those around her, in the sense of her brother.

/As glad as I am to see that you're in good spirits, theatrics won't be necessary. All I need for you to do is for you to call up my lawyer Matt Murdock and tell him that Reed Richards wants to have a meeting with him at his earliest convince. Let him know that Susan Storm will be coming with him with him and I want Matt to have the forms ready to let me temporarily transfer my power of attorney.\

Susan's eyebrows twitched slightly, as her own common sense conflicted with what Reed had told her. "Okay, I don't doubt that I can drive us both there if you help with directions, not to mention hide my elasticity, but if your lawyer has a functioning set of eyes he's going to realize something very strange is going on pretty much the moment you enter the room." /Matt is blind.\

Now it was Susan's turn to just stand there in semi-shock digesting this new piece of information for a few moments. "Oh." There where many, many questionable tasteful jokes she could have made at that point to help break the sudden tension but she avoided saying any of them. Instead, she got right to the heart of the matter.

"Well I suppose that's not so much a horse of a different color, as a gazelle instead of a horse. I guess we might be able to pull this particular bit of, whatever you want to call it, off, of course it depends on him not, to pick one example at random, asking his secretary if two people actually walked by her on the way into his office."

Luckily with the exception of one flight to the moon, Reed Richards always considered all the ramifications of his plans. /Well over the last week I've more or less developing all the powers that I'll just lump together as 'psychic' for lack of a simpler word. Telepathy is the one that I'm having the most luck with, not to mention finding the most useful, but there are others.\

Susan returned to her seat, when Reed Richards really built up steam there wasn't a thing in the world that could truly break his mental stride. /I'm also having currently limited, but slowly improving success where telekinesis is involved though that's not particularly relevant to our endeavor.

Now, I think it would only be appropriate to define 'telepathy' as the ability to communicate mind to mind. In effect I'm inserting information directly into someone's memory, making them remember me having 'said' certain things, without the information ever having to be processed by one of their five senses, in this case hearing.

If I can do that and you mention me unintentionally providing you with visual data while discussing the Baxter Building, then it would suggest that I could purposely implant images into someone's head of something they haven't actually seen.

Of course I'm not exactly sure what would happen if this visual data came into contact with other visual data which conflicts with it. However, if your brother is any example, the natural human inclination is to accept whatever view of the world best fits with their preconceived notions."

To her credit Susan had been mostly following him up to that last sentence. "Huh? Could you 'say' that again and make it a little less complicated, possibly with examples involved?" Reed Richards had a brilliant mind (he didn't have much besides that brilliant mind, but she'd rather not focus on that fact at the moment) that was by her estimates currently comprehending the way the world worked on a completely different wave length than everyone else did. Which meant it was a good thing he'd had the patience of a saint to start with when it came to explaining things multiple times.

/I consider what that cosmic ray storm did to us as a significant reconfiguration of our genetic structures which subsequently resulted in the manifestations of extreme mutations that may or may not prove beneficial to our chances of survival and successful reproduction.

Of course at the moment my mutations are doubtless extremely detrimental to my chances of passing on genetic information through any sort of natural process. Granted, it wasn't so much my mutation as the following explosion that destroyed my body, so I guess my mutation was extremely beneficial to my chances of survival when seen in that light.

On the other hand your mutations Susan are doubtlessly beneficial to your chances of survival, managing to be somehow both effectively a gigantic leap simultaneously backwards and forwards on the evolutionary scale.\ Susan was still somewhat lost, but she could see that Reed was working towards something and went along with it, making jokes as she felt appropriate.

"Then I guess its a good thing I can stretch my legs in different directions." She might as well have been doing stand-up material to the occupants of a morgue for all the response she got. /Quite. To bring my example to the point that makes it useful when considering our situation, I've just expounded at length how I perceive the changes that we've gone through.

Your brother, on the other hand, defines them simple as 'superpowers' since that seems to be the most appropriate term given what he is familiar with. People everywhere perceive the world through the individual lens of their own personalities and beliefs.

Suppose there's a semi-mysterious object seen at night by two people, one of whom is a skeptic and the other is a firm believer in the prospect that there is intelligent extraterrestrial life. The first person is likely to disregard it, while the second will believe it to be a UFO. As it applies to our situation, if a person 'hears' me projecting words into their mind at the same time I'm effectively inserting myself into whatever optical information she's seeing, they should believe that I'm present.

Imagine you were having a conversation with someone and they're standing behind a pillar in such a way that they're in one of your eye's blind spots. Your eyes are in disagreement over the issue of whether or not the person exists, but you assume they do because of contextual clues, like the fact that you can hear their voice.

I can't promise it'll be just like that, but I feel confident that the secretary in question should be more likely to believe my suggestion that she's talking to a person than the possibility that words are magically popping into her head. It's taking that saying about "who are you going to believe, me or your eyes?" to its logical conclusion.

Of course the downside is that projecting two streams of data probably increases the effort required by a power of two, since the streams of data have to overlap with one another or else the end result...\ By this point Susan had caught on to what Reed was trying to work at.

"Something out of a badly dubbed foreign movie where someone's lips keep moving without any lines accompanying them." There was a note of pride in Reed's mental voice. /Exactly! Because of that strain I don't think I cold pull it off for an extended period of time, or fool two people simultaneously, but then I shouldn't have to if all goes according to plan.

Of course the one downside is that I don't think I'll be able to test my abilities ahead of time.\ "Huh? Why can't you just practice with one of us?" /Because all of you would find the idea of me having a human body more unusual than me being a living brain, so you'd reject the information I put in your mind as contextually wrong and not pay attention to it.\

Susan thought about that for a moment, and then she had a bright idea of her own. /Okay, so that particular example wouldn't work, but what if you were trying to make Ben or Johnny see something else that they'd be expecting to see rather than what they were actually seeing, because I can think of one thing that would qualify.'"

-----

Johnny shivered as he closed the door to the lab behind him. He was definitely going to need to start getting more sleep, there was no two ways about it. Because him having daydreams was the only reason why Reed could send him upstairs to get a particular tool from his bedroom, and both going up and coming down he could see his sister eating lunch at a reasonable hour dressed in her purple jumpsuit, yet been absolutely certain for the briefest instant that she was doing it in just the suit's bra and panties.

He remembered reading about one guy who had been taking part in a cycling marathon and hadn't been getting enough sleep, he had ended up having these moments where thought he was in some kind of nightmare and his crew had strapped a bomb his bike, or whatever.

Clearly if you didn't get enough sleep you found yourself living your nightmares. That was the only explanation for it, that or he'd gotten sucked into some hellish alternate dimension. That kind of thing happened to superheroes after all. Though why couldn't it just be a fire and brimstone kind of hellish dimension? Deamons and devils with flaming pitchforks he could fight, a reality in which his sister as a Victoria's Secret model? There wasn't anything he could do about that except wish really, really hard that it wasn't true.

----

Susan pulled the top half of her uniform back on, then proceeded to pound her hands on the table, laughing so hard she was afraid she might cough up a lung in the process. She couldn't get words out amid the laughter, but she did manage to think extremely hard. /So what is your diagnosis?\

Reed told her exactly what she expected to hear. /Subject shows subtle sign of unease, but is mentally quite confident that it was just the visual equivalent of a Freudian Slip. In other words, complete success, granted I was only sending visual information to him at the time.\ Susan finally regained control of herself and wiped several large tears from her eyes, a wide smile on her face.

"Oh, we are both so horrible. If it weren't for the fact that being a superheroine is going to earn me a ton of good karma, I'd be so certain that I was going to hell for that. If my brother ever wants therapy we're going to have to pay for it, or else I'll never be able to live with myself."

That said, Susan couldn't help but take just a little bit of pride with what she'd just done. It wasn't easy to perform some everyday activity in your undergarments the exact same way you would do it if you were fully clothed, but apparently, she'd pulled it off.

Of course that said, the kind of movies in which that particular acting skill was involved predominantly featured all but impossibly attractive pizza boys, (not to mention they would be the kind of movie in which the phrase "my bust size is whatever I want it to be" made you a veritable shoe-in for leading lady) so perhaps she really shouldn't be patting herself on the back quite so hard.

But after that experiment, she finally felt even with her brother, after the shame of having him see her trying eat to breakfast without using any of her limbs. Of course Johnny hadn't engineered her embarrassment, but still, the look in her brother's eyes which suggested he might start shooting sparks and break into "Daisy, daisy..." at any moment was like the world's richest darkest chocolate. It felt so very wrong for her to find pleasure in the fact that she'd indulging in it, and simply succulent not to enjoy.

"Seriously, you were a veritable Doctor Mengele to go along with that idea." Of course Reed didn't seem to be particularly bothered, but then it hadn't been his idea and Johnny wasn't his brother. "Well, it was the ideal test given our situation. We needed a subject who could be presented with a stimulus that they would automatically reject. So we made the best of what we had to work with for the good of the team. I'm sure if we explained it to him, Johnny would understand and forgive us."

Susan managed to banish the last remnants of that irrepressible joviality from her soul before responding. "If you honestly believe that, then you don't know my brother, which is why we aren't going to tell him, right?" /Right.\

Grateful that this particular act would stay between the two of them, Susan stretched out her right arm to grab hold of the reasonably nearby phone. "So now that we know that your powers work the way you hoped they would, let's get the next step of this show on the road. After all it's either that ort just sit around playing practical jokes on each other."

She pulled it over to her, but before she could dial, Susan needed a moment (make that several moments) to figure out what the heck was going on with the funny feeling halfway between butterflies in her stomach and having a needle full of dopamine injected into her veins. "Aww nuts..." /Something the matter Susan?\

She examined the phone's layout of buttons, not that she found anything remarkable about them, they looked just like they had during the dozens of other times she'd called someone from Reed's house. "No it's nothing, just give me a moment to get my thoughts in order."

Luckily enough Reed was apparently only keeping track of what she said, rather than what she thought. And what Susan Storm was thinking at the moment was that if nothing else, she and Reed had just had a nice long conversation and then they had gone and taken part in the kind of dark secret creating bonding experience that was the proverbial cement that could help hold relationships together.

Which in turn tripped off all kinds of hormonal switches in her body. Defining it simply as her brain playing and reproductive organs battling for control of the rest of her body would have been selling it short. It was more of a _melee a trois_ to turn a phrase: With her reproductive organs arguing how given Reed's lack of a key to open her lock, she should have already told him they were through right to his non-existent face. Her mind -- which was telling her that if Reed could project visual data, then he could project sensory data into her mind, then her uncivilized nether regions should happy enough, so she should start carefully investigating how Reed felt about her -- and her heart, which was vigorously arguing that if she was clearly so in love with Reed Richards that even not having a voice wasn't enough to stop his voice from making her feel weak at the knees. Then, she should just give into the inevitable and admit she loved him. Alliances were made and unmade in the blink of an eye.

But it wasn't the battle that most irritated her, it was the way that it ended -- nobody won. She wasn't sure if the three of them simultaneously managed to slay each other, or just ran out of energy and collapsed. The entire show was an exercise in pointlessness! If Susan's organs wanted to wage an all-out war for control of her body, you would think they'd have the decency to have a proper winner left standing when the dust cleared. But no, she was every bit as confused as beforehand, which left her with only one choice, to get on with her life and start dialing the phone.

----

Luck was with them again since Mr. Murdock, had an opening in his schedule for a late afternoon meeting, and by the time they needed to get on the move, Reed had devised a suitable method of transportation. "You know, I think it says a lot about both of us that you'd be willing to do something like this to yourself, and that I'd be willing to help you do it."

Reed had been transferred from the grey bowl, to a Tupperware container that was spacious enough for him to fit in without any difficultly. With the top on said container, and said container in a backpack, it made for more or less an effective two-level system of protection that didn't provoke awkward questions like "What exactly are you doing with that brain?" or its equally unanswerable companion "Why do you have a small bank safe slung under your arm?" at the other end of the spectrum.

Okay it wasn't exactly foolproof, since at the moment it did provoke the question of why she had decided to adjust the passenger-side strap and seatbelt so that they covered her backpack. /Fine china.\

Reed repeated their particular answer to that question and Susan nodded, it wasn't exactly foolproof, but it was vaguely reasonable. Besides she needed to remind herself every so often that just because she occasionally felt like a walking angry mob magnet, didn't mean that the rest of the world was actually out to get her. In fact the rest of the world was at the moment blithely unaware of bizarre possibilities like when a woman said she had fine china in a backpack, she really had her semi-former boyfriends psychic brain in it, and the woman in question could bend her body to such a degree that kissing her own ass was the least of her abilities.

"So that what paranoia feels like, huh? Somehow I expected it to be a bit more flamboyant. Well I'm sure it won't be long before the guys in black suits wearing sunglasses show up who want to dissect my body so that they use my component parts to make some new kind of body armor for our fighting men and women show up."

She laughed as she inserted the key (Reed had given her a spare set of car keys shortly after she moved in so that she could run errands (like shopping for food, ironically enough) without needing to disturb him. /Well there is a saying, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there aren't people who are out to get you.\

She shifted the car from park to reverse. "You always know just how to put me in a good mood, Reed, and by the way, I might as well out-and-out tell you now that I feel ridiculous carrying you around in a backpack." Having gained the necessary amount of distance for such maneuvers, she made the turn, then shifted the car into drive and set off down the road heading back towards a world filled with countless human beings none of whom could throw fire from their hands, turn invisible…

/Just think of it as practice.\ Susan took her eyes off the road for a moment to glare at the backpack. "Practice for what? All the other times I'll have to carry you around in a backpack? I'd hope that after we become superheroes you'll be able to figure out something more efficient than us toting you around by hand, not to mention since he's obviously the strongest of us I figure it'll be my brother's job to carry you around once the public doesn't get freaked out by the sight of him."

Much to her surprise (followed quickly by her surprise at actually being surprised) Reed had a comeback ready for her delivered in his usual tone of voice. /Well Susan I've noticed that a lot of mothers walk around with their children strapped to their backs. Is it so hard to extrapolate from transporting and protecting one defenseless being you care about to another?\

Susan winced and did the one of the worst things a woman in her position could possibly do, she closed her eyes. She kept them closed for a good five seconds, and if not for the fact that area around Reed's house was fairly uneventful she really would have been begging for a chance to find out how good a job she'd done at securing that backpack to its seat.

"Reed, don't talk to me about kids, or at least not my theoretical kids." Unfortunately, stripping away all the external niceties hadn't changed Reed's core personality settings in the slightest, on a scale of one to ten: intelligence, ten, curiosity, ten, memory for at first glance pointless scientific jargon, twelve, subtlety, one, ability to detect others trying to subtly swing the direction a conversation was taking? A big fat goose egg. /Why?\

Since the road ahead was still fairly clear, Susan now took both hands off the steering wheel and waved them for emphasis. "Because it's a touchy subject for me at the moment, and if you ask me why it's a touchy subject, then I'm going to unbuckle you, bring this thing up to whatever its maximum speed is, and then make like my foot has been welded to the brake pedal."

Sure enough, this time she got the point across and there was silence. Which left plenty of time for her to think to herself about why exactly kids were a touchy subject with her all of a sudden.

Probably because of what they represented, it wasn't like she would feel like she hadn't lived a fulfilling life if she never took down the "This space for rent" sign in her womb. But with children came a husband, a family – Okay, you could have children without a husband, though Susan had obviously never particularly considered herself the kind of woman who could find herself doing such a thing.

Which could be problematic given her current situation, was now officially-- what was the word Johnny had once used to describe unmarried women who were clearly not middle-aged but all the same were a few years past college age? -- "Christmas cake" that was what Susan Storm was.

She was past the proverbial planned date of use, the 25th, but it wasn't like she had started to go stale or anything. After all, lots of people who had extended families opended up some presents on the 25th with one branch of it and some more on the 26th. Not to mention people ussualy didn't take down the tree until New Year's....

She shook the metaphor from her head before it became even more needlessly convoluted and decided instead on focusing on _why,_ exactly, she was still single, leaving aside Reed's current condition. She had generated a fair number of prospective boyfriends in high school and college, after all. Probably in part due to her good looks, and in part due to her habit of showing of said good looks to a considerable portion of the student body in a swimsuit after soaking herself in a combination of unheated pool water and her own sweat. But she hadn't been interested then, because she'd been too concerned about keeping her grades up and having the space open in her schedule to do a few part-time jobs here and there to generate the extra money she'd need for her brother's college fund to ever give dating much thought, and she'd more or less kept thinking that way out of college up until she met Reed.

All of a sudden, from out of nowhere a thought struck Susan, bringing with it a most shocking realization. In that way, she and Reed were the same! Yes it had been for different reasons, but up until Ben had tossed them together, both of them been quite intently putting their careers ahead of any sort of relationship.

So how exactly had two people who both thought that they were too busy for romantic entanglements managed to eek out a relationship that had seemed enjoyably dysfunctional right up until superpowers came into the mix?

Not just any superpowers either. If Reed had grown wings, or expressed his superpowers in just about any other way than being just a disembodied psychic brain, then it would have only ended up adding another layer of enjoyable dysfunctioanlity to the relationship. They could stay up late during thunderstorms and play "Doctor Frankenstein and his Creation", with said creation having been made after taking the body parts of numerous dead women, putting them in a giant blender set on "puree" and zapping the resulting ooze with electricity till it showed signs of sentience. Susan had no idea what the rules to that particular game were at the moment, but she didn't doubt it would have been fun to discover them.

But no. Instead some higher power had decided to launch a lightning bolt from its raised middle finger straight at their relationship and blast more holes into its hull than she found in the plot of some of her brother's favorite movies. But clearly Susan should be pointing her own finger of blame (in fact it was beyond a doubt a middle finger of blame) back at whatever force had been behind that particular development. _Not_ at Reed as she reminded herself once again, contemplating slamming her head into the steering wheel as she did so.

"I'm sorry about flying off the handle there for a moment Reed. It's not your fault. I guess talking about kids makes me think about the way things would have been if it wasn't for that cosmic ray story, and it feels like my rubbery body hasn't quite hit the road when it comes to the entire being superheroes without secret identities thing." /Phase one Susan, phase one.\

Reed repeated those particular words like a reverent mantra, because that was the way his mind had always worked. You had a problem, so you came up with a plan to solve it. Then you followed the plan to the letter, but if things started to go wrong then you had about a dozen other plans up your sleeves to fit the new situation.

Susan wished that Reed would have reacted a bit more emotionally to his situation: start screaming a stream of mental obscenities aimed at whatever cruel hand had brought him to this fate. Be sullen, be resentful. Show the extra large helping of PTSD that losing her entire body would doubtlessly have caused Susan. After she had that particular thought, it took her a moment to realize why she wanted to see and hear him do such a thing. It wasn't because it would be a way of affirming that he still possessed his humanity; it was a much more insidious wish than that.

It was because the Reed Richards she had fallen in love with would never do such things, so if Big Brain did, then Susan Storm would be able to say to herself that clearly (and understandably) losing his body had changed who Reed was personality-wise, and she could graciously bow out of the relationship in full without feeling guilty.

But such was not to be. Reed was clearly himself and if Susan officially dumped him at a moment like this (particularly to bounce her way over to Benjamin Grimm) then she knew in her heart of hearts that she was; a lot of very unpleasant things (some of them rather charmingly alliterative -- twistable tart) to say the least. "Yeah, step one indeed, let's just hope that this particular journey ends up being noticeably less exciting than the last one we went on together."

-----

Susan walked into the building with a backpack slung over her back, following Reed's instructions since he was familiar with the layout of the building. /You can let Mr. Murdock know hat Reed Richards and Susan Storm have arrived.\ The secretary looked up, and smiled as if she wasn't at all wondering where the male voice she had just heard originated from. "Of course Mr. Richards, you can head right on in."

Susan had to resist the urge to whoop for joy or in an other way forfeit the game they were now on the cusp of winning. So instead she just gave the backpack an especially jaunty pat as she walked away from the secretary. She knocked on the necessary door just to be sure, and heard a polite "come in" form inside.

Sure enough, Matt Murdock had on the dark sunglasses and a long thin white cane on a loop over his right hand that made his status as visually impaired obvious for everyone who wasn't to see. /Don't judge a book by its cover Susan, Matt has always done excellent work for me.\

Susan shook her head, not wanting to spend the next couple minutes of her life getting lectured on how people had overcome their physical disabilities to achieve great things, Bach had been deaf and etcetera etcetera leading all the way up to Reed Richards was currently a disembodied brain.

There were two seats in front of Mr. Murdock's desk and Susan sat down in one them placing Reed's backpack in the other. /Thank you for agreeing to this meeting on such short notice, Matt. I'd normally offer to shake hands, at this point but it would be a little hard for me at the moment. You can perform the usual handclasp with Susan if you want to.\

The blind lawyer twitched slightly as if he knew that something wasn't quite right, but couldn't place it. "Well I figure just the fact that you couldn't call me yourself said it was urgent. By the way, are you coming down with some laryngitis? Your voice sounds different than normal today."

Susan just sat there, still as a statue, not about to disturb her fragile hope that this might work. /I don't think I have any throat problems at the moment Matt.\ At least unless you considered not having one a throat problem. /Do you have the forms I asked you to get ready?\ Matt nodded, and taped a manilla folder on the center of his desk.

"Yes I do, but do you mind if I ask you why you're interested in giving someone else temporary power of attorney over your affairs? That's not something people typically do on a whim after all." Susan shifted uncomfortably in her seat trying not to stretch, yes it wasn't like Matt would be able to see her do it, but if she found herself getting bent out of shape every time the pressure was on, it was setting a bad precedent.

/You remember the entire flight into space thing I was working on Matt?\ A quick formal nod. "Yes. I was wondering how that turned out, since there hasn't been anything about the results in the paper, front page or obituaries." Susan made sure not to ask how he knew. He probably had Braille versions of newspapers, or he had a secretary fill him in on any important bits of news concerning his clients.

/We weren't exactly successful, but it didn't quite kill me either. Which is why I'd like to sign over power of attorney to Susan. When we crashed I fractured both my arms, and broke a couple of my fingers. Not exactly life-threatening, but unpleasant and even more so whenever I try to write. I can just barely manage to sign my name, but it's not an easy or painless thing to do.

Subsequently, I'd like to give Susan my power of attorney for three months since she came out of the crash landing in better condition. This way she can take care of signing all the paper work I need taken care of until I heal.\ Matt scratched his chin for a moment then shrugged, and pushed the folder across the table to them. "Ahh, all right then, Reed. I still need you to sign on the dotted line where it says you're allowing the undersigned to act in your name, which is where I'll need you to sign, Susan.

By the way, you can talk if you want to, I don't bite." Susan blushed and then sighed, as she opened up the folder and flipped through several pieces of paper stapled together (the packet doubtlessly would have been shorter if everything wasn't written twice, once in regular block letters, and a second time in braille), and after getting to the last page, picked up the pen that had been resting against the spine of the folder. "Sorry, I'm jut a little nervous, it's not everyday your boyfriend temporarily dumps his entire fortune into your lap just because he has trouble holding a pen."

Of course what she was really thinking was something entirely different. /We are so screwed Reed! How do you expect me to sign for you on this thing and not have whoever acts as a notary not notice the similarities between my signature and yours, thus drawing all kinds of unwanted attention?\ Reed remained as imperturbable as always. /Hold it over the line where I'm suppose to sign, and don't try to fight the pen.\

She did, and a moment later she understood what exactly "don't try to fight the pen" meant, as she felt an unseen hand tug at it. She meticulously followed the tugs of the pen, the name "Reed Richards" slowly taking shape in what was as good an approximation of his signature as any.

Susan made sure to scrawl out her own name extra fast and messy to make the differences between the two signatures as profound as possible. Then she put the pen down, and pushed the folder and it's contents back towards Matt. "All right then, I'll see about getting this faxed to the necessary places and by the start of the business day tomorrow, Susan will be able to handle making purchase in our name, bank withdrawals, and whatever else you have to deal with.

By the way, just thought I'd congratulate you Reed, both on still being alive, and finally managing to find yourself a girl. If you honestly trust Susan not to take the money and run, then there must be something really special going on between you." Susan laughed nervously, saying that there was something special going on between her and Reed was like saying that the people who had been on the maiden flight of the Hindenburg had wanted their tickets refunded before it was all over. Yes it was true, but it didn't give any inklings to the darker nature of that truth.

"You have no idea, Mr. Murdock, you have no idea at all." She tried to sound like she was a woman in love with someone and not like a cackling harpy who was in fact planning to take the money and run, and apparently she was successful. Granted what exactly was Matt going to do if she bailed?

Yes Susan would be violating the trust Reed had placed in her, but unless the blind lawyer seated across the table from her was in the business of secretly punishing people who the law couldn't touch during his free time, then wasn't much he would be able to do about her actions except dictate a very angry letter to her. "Well, best of luck to both of you, and Reed, if there's a wedding at some point down the line make sure to invite me to it." /Of course, a pleasure to work with you as always Matt.\

Susan scooped up the backpack, slung it over her shoulders and walked out. She waited until she was back in the car (she put the backpack in the passenger-side seat and buckled it up again) untill she let loose with a very deep sigh. "You know the entire taking advantage of a man's disability to free up the funds we need thing sounds a lot more like it belongs in a supervillian's origin story then a superhero's.

Just a heads-up, because I'd appreciate you giving me one in advance if I'm suddenly going to need breasts that are a size larger, a black leather outfit that barely keeps them from popping loose, a pair of spiked heels, and a new name which will properly incite fear in the hearts of the pathetic wastes of flesh which surround me at every turn. At the moment I'm thinking Malice, Mistress of Hate, since my brother seems to insist that you can't have superpowers without five daily servings of alliteration."

Reed's voice was vaguely apologetic. /Well it's not like were really taking advantage of Matt's.... okay we _were_ taking advantage of it, but we didn't actually break any laws.\ Susan eased the car out of her parking space, glad that the windows were up. Any passing pedestrian or motorist would think she was just reciting a grocery list to make sure she had it memorized, or something equally unimportant.

"So, me forging your signature?" /It wasn't really forging as such. I'm pretty sure prosecuting for that crime requires the person whose signature was forged to agree that the forger should be prosecuted, which obviously I won't do. Besides, hmm… I suppose I should have done some research on how exactly Stephen Hawking signs his checks.

It still is my money, and I can do whatever I want with it. But I'd rather not reveal the exact nature of my disability untill the Fantastic Four reveals itself to the public, since it will seem less, dramatic for lack of a better word.\ Susan did have to hand that to Reed, a living psychic brain would seem at least slightly less absurd in the company of a man with wings, a guy who now had skin made of metal, a woman who could contort herself into a pretzel with ease.

Still, if all this sneaking around and double-talkery was like having a secret identity was like, then deciding to forgo having them was doubtlessly up there in Reed Richard's top ten best ideas ever.

End Chapter four


	5. Chapter 5

AN: Don't worry I'm not dead, and nor have I given up on this fic.

Original Twist Chapter five, Experimentation: In which Susan Storm shakes hands and Reed Richards runs some tests.

"So as you can see Miss Storm, the Baxter Building is equipped with all the latest, in convinces, and doubtlessly cold serve as a fine apartment complex or..." "I've had enough of the ten cent tour, I'll buy it."

Susan really wished that she was wearing sunglasses and some kind of fur, (preferably made from the kind of animal that there weren't many left of) as she said those words instead of an ordinary enough looking outfit that carefully concealed the purple jumpsuit beneath.

The people who currently owned the Baxter Building had obviously done some fact checking when she'd called them up, but once they'd found that yes she really was legally authorized to act in place of Reed Richards an extremely rich and extremely eccentric genius, they rolled out enough red carpet to mummify an entire army.

After all, they clearly had no idea what exactly to do with this white elephant so why not make it someone else's problem? Susan had been the model of tact and grace for the most part, but she wasn't about to give them the chance to let them show off every single floor to her, which they doubtlessly would have if they'd had the chance.

"Of course Miss Storm, I believe we've got all the papers we need in the lobby, if you just follow me.." Susan did a slightly vacant expression on her face. /Well phase two seems to be going along much more smoothly than phase one did, lets hope things continue to get easier from here.\

She was not wearing a backpack with Reed's brain in it. The backpack was currently in the car which was parked outside the Baxter Building. Susan had been a little worried about doing that since this was New York City, and she couldn't be absolutely sure that someone wouldn't steal the car (and Reed with it) while she wasn't looking.

Reed considered it a necessary risk since he wanted to be inside Susan's head while she was touring what would soon be their new home. He had also fairly quickly brought Susan around to his point of view that if someone was in the business of stealing cars, their shrapnel-perforated current mode of conveyance was probably the most unappealing target imaginable. That was a hard argument to refute, considering it was hard to imagine how the car could get any more dilapidated without ceasing to function.

There was a lot of important legal talk that by and large Reed translated for her (though sometimes his translations required another translation just to fully get the point across) but she understood the process well enough. She signed all the necessary forms and was told that the place was hers.

--

Susan then headed back to Reed's house. Driving at night was risky, but conveying Johnny and Ben around in day light would have been riskier. The clothing they were wearing was much too extensive for the summer weather, but with the air conditioning in Reed's car going full blast it was bearable for them, even if Susan (who was dressed in equally heavy clothing since being in the driver's seat she got a bigger blast of AC than either of her backseat passengers) could feel her teeth chattering the entire way.

With such heavy clothing on and his wings tightly folded, Ben looked a little like a hunchback, but most certainly not someone with wings and unless some light fell directly on her brother, no one was likely to directly notice the color of his skin.

They parked in front of the Baxter Building, walked calmly inside as if they didn't have anything to hide and then quickly began to remove their excess layers of clothing. Johnny looked around the huge lobby and instantly came to a conclusion. "I call this floor!"

--

Susan looked at the list of items that Reed wanted her to obtain, Ben had transcribed it for him and so the handwriting was perfectly legible. "I have two important questions. The first, is where exactly am I going to get this stuff? The second is, could you slowly and carefully explain to me how each one of them is pronounced?"

--

Phase three came and went quickly. Mainly because one didn't purchase an entire skyscraper without making the news, and especially not when you were doing it through your girlfriend.

So people were aware that reclusive genius Reed Richards was interested in expanding his laboratory and since Reed did in fact know the right people to talk to, it wasn't too difficult to get it delivered to the Baxter Building.

Once it was inside the moving it to Reed's lab became Johnny's job, at least assuming said equipment was sturdy enough. Bit by bit, piece by piece Reed was starting to develop a laboratory that was starting to make his old one look like a nothing more than a high school chemistry class.

--

Of course not all of all Reed's equipment was for purely scientific purpose, and not all of his time was spent working on producing the team's uniforms. /Again.\ Susan swung a fist that she had increased to comically large proportions against the pressure which was more or less exactly the same size as the fist that connected against it.

Susan's brow furrowed when she saw the readout, she still had no particular idea exactly what a single Newton really was the physical, real-world equivalent of, but she understood the basic principle well enough. Newtons were used to measure how hard you hit something, and Susan's last punch just like the one before it had been beneath her baseline no powers jab. "I don't get it." /I think I do.\

Somehow, Susan wasn't surprised in the slightest that what left her thoroughly befuddled was clear as daylight to Reed. "All right then, right about now I should be pulling on a string to release confetti and balloons because I think this is the ceremonial one hundredth time I've uttered these words to you, explain it to me." For the ceremonial one hundredth (or at least Susan had claimed it was for humorous effect) he did.

/The force an object strikes with is dependent both upon the force driving the object and how large an area it strikes. When you're increasing the volume of your fists, but not paying attention to increasing the mass of them as well, you're effectively turning them into giant foam hammers which is why you're hitting with less force than you did with an ordinary human-sized hand. Why don't we try a blow with the aid of centrifugal force and see what it achieves?\

Susan was familiar with the concept of centrifugal force, but wasn't quite sure how it applied to this situation. "For the hundred and first time, explain what you mean to me by that." He did, and it was deceptively simple. "Oh, okay then in that case I'm going to need to take about a dozen steps back."

She did, then raised her right arm above her head and began to swing it around, letting it get slightly longer with each rotation. Every time her arm went around it also gained speed, and after about fifteen seconds of twirling she let loose with her punch. After a wind-up of epic proportions, her arm sailed across the distance between her and the pressure sensor.

It connected solidly with the middle of the thing and her old "score" was replaced by a new one. "Ding! the lady rings the bell and wins a prize!" The number was higher than the last one, it was also higher than a baseline, what exactly that new number meant was up to debate at the moment.

/A vast improvement just as I predicted. Though you should know that striking with that much force would likely prove fatal against an ordinary human being, but still it would seem a very real possibility that we find ourselves in combat against opponents who aren't ordinary human beings, so it only makes sense to be prepared to face such opponents."

Susan nodded a slight smile on her face. When it came to dealing with normal human beings she had already mastered what her technique of choice would be. Being the first person to ever be subjected to it Johnny was had suggested two different names for it, either "the hug of death" or "the time out", not that she particularly cared what he had to say on the issue. It wasn't like part of the job requirements for being a superhero was to yelling the name of any attack you were using before you actually attacked. Either way, it amounted to simply extending one of her limbs around a person, and wrapping it around them.

It was a hunting technique that was still in use by pythons and other such constricting serpents the world over, both simple and effective. Restrain the prey, prevent it from escaping, then slowly tighten, applying more and more pressure until the lungs no longer had room to expand, and thus the prey could no longer truly breathe. Unconsciousness followed fairly quickly, and if the grip was maintained it eventually resulted in death.

Ben had spent a lot of time in Susan's "coils" recently, letting her practice with the closest thing to a human being (and Reed had theorized that given his ability to fly Ben might not be as near to a human being as he looked) they had on hand, so that Susan could figure out exactly how hard she had to squeeze, how long she needed to squeeze for, if was more effective to apply pressure to the throat instead of the lungs, what about the possibility of applying pressure to both, and otherwise letting himself be half-strangled with surprising calmness.

They had no idea what their first job as superheroes would be, so they practiced anything that might possibly prove useful. In the process, her brother had discovered something weird, in addition to being able to punch hard enough to break the first two pressure sensors Reed had acquired, he could also syphon and release most types of energy.

What that amounted to was that if he stuck his finger in a socket he could build up enough electricity in his body to easily shock an ordinary person into cardiac arrest. Once he discovered this, he promptly began handing out "joybuzzer" handshakes to everyone he could, which was of course limited to Susan (who apparently had a higher tolerance for having electricity run through her body than normal humans) and Ben.

/Now why don't we find out how much momentum you can build up bouncing off the walls before you strike the sensor and see how hard you hit it?\ Susan bowed her head as she began to curl herself into a sphere. "Whatever you say, and maybe after that I can try stretching across a gap and inverting my body so that my legs walk across myself."

To his credit when she struck the pressure sensor Reed once again interpreted her results as having struck with enough power to have caved in a human skull. Which left Susan to figure out if it was more humorous or macabre to know that she could transform into a bouncing ball of death given enough time to build up momentum.

--

Susan woke up and checked he color of her undergarments, still perfectly purple as always. There was something very strange going on. It had been three weeks since she'd gained her powers. By her own calculations that meant her cycle was more or less dragging a week behind.

She knew it wasn't impossible for her to be pregnant (she'd taken precautions, but in a world where going into space gave you superpowers a little thing like managing to get pregnant while taking birth control pills was nothing) but half a dozen tests she'd purchased and quickly gone through a few days back had made it quite clear that she wasn't.

Which meant that Susan wasn't pregnant, and yet wasn't menstruating either. Which in turn would suggest that gaining superpowers had somehow kicked her age about thirty-five years forward where menopause was concerned, except that if she'd been having any symptoms of that besides a lack of menstruation she hadn't noticed them.

There was no way it was menopause, that was suppose to deaden sexual urges since the biological clock had officially stripped its gears, and Susan's was still ticking loudly enough for her to hear to hear it every time she closed her eyes. So that wasn't it either, which exhausted all of the logical possibilities she could think of.

She somehow doubted that Reed would be able to help her with this distinctly feminine problem, and going to a proper gynaecologist was out of the question until the Fantastic Four had publicly announced themselves since any regular physical would doubtlessly reveal Susan's powers. Which left her with no choice but to put that particular issue on the shelf until later, especially considering that Reed said today he'd be showing the group their new outfits.

--

Susan had to give credit to Reed for doing a lot with a little. Even though his telekinesis only let him exert a small amount of force, he'd still figured out a way to finagle a reasonable amount of mobility out of it.

A tupperware container, a largish remote controlled toy car, and some duct tape. It sounded exactly like the kind of thing that MacGyver would create some kind of improbable machine or tool for escape out of, and Reed hadn't particularly disappointed either.

With the container taped to the top of the car, and its control taped to the top of that, he was able to telekenetically manipulate its controls. Reed evidently felt the dignity he sacrificed in the process was well worth the mobility he gained. He was waiting for them on the kitchen of the floor that they had all agreed to share. Reed's lab took up a considerable portion of it, but there was still plenty of room for three people to each have their own individual residence.

He just "sat" off to the side while the three ate. Once they had he didn't even bother with a telepathic command, he simply let the unmistakable sound of the tiny engine revering to life speak for him as he rode off leaving the three to follow him on foot. He led them into an elevator and in a slightly more grandiose display of telekinesis, managed to hit the button for the roof.

After a short trip, the elevator doors opened and the three found themselves face-to-face with what looked more or less like a perfect duplicate of the ship that they'd tried to get to the moon in. "Jeez you work fast Reed, I mean I know that you're smart, but how did you get thing built inside a fortnight?" There was more than a little bemusement in Reed's mental voice as he made his next announcement.

/I didn't build it recently actually. This was a prototype of the ship I built because I wanted to make sure that I had all the concepts involved in the creation of a rocketship down pat. It still seats four, but it's engines are weaker. I designed it as a strictly stratospheric craft, but none the less it is extremely effective for that task.

Just the fact that it arrived here in one piece says that once some other people took care of dragging it out of storage it's automatic piloting and landing systems work. Eventually I'm going to design and elevator system in the roof similar to what you'd see on most aircraft carriers with a retractable roof so we don't have to leave our vehicles up here where they're more vulnerable to the elements. I know I'm getting ahead of myself but this takes care of phase five. Now as for phase four...\

Once again, certain buttons lit up without any fingers coming near them and soon the elevator returned to the floor from which they'd departed. Reed took off, wheels spinning and the other three followed him to his lab. /There are six outfits on the table over there. Two for each of you, though given that they're more or less completely stain-proof and should in theory last forever, the additional outfit might prove superfluous. Still, our failure three weeks ago taught me another lesson in the importance of having a redundant backup.\

Sure enough there were six complete outfits. They consisted of a long-sleeved shirt, gloves, a belt, long pants, and boots. The shirts had a white "4" logo with a circle around it, and Susan estimated that the logo would be more or less directly between her breasts once she put them on. As Johnny began to pull the outfit on over his civilian clothing once again he decided to say something completely inappropriate. "Reed, I realize that you're a genius, not a fashion designer, but thank you from the bottom of my central processing unit not for making them purple.

Oh and doubly thanks for making our uniforms all nice, and, well uniform. Because if the one you'd made for my sister consisted of a literal breastplate and a skirt, then I would have been left with little choice but to fill that container you're in with a dishwasher detergent." The outfits on the whole were in fact sky-blue, with the gloves and boots tending towards a slightly darker shade of it, and after having spent so much time in her purple jumpsuit, Susan certainly had gotten more or less thoroughly sick of it.

She quickly scooped up two tops, belts, the necessary undergarments, (these were the only obvious deviation among the three sets of uniforms) long pants, and four gloves and boots increasing the size of her hands so she could more easily hold it all before turning back towards the door out of Reed's lab. "I don't know about you boys, but I'm going to try and find some place a bit more private to change..."

Ben evidently agreed with her, grabbing enough articles of clothing to make up one outfit (finding to his surprise that two of the shirts had small openings in the back of them so as to let his wings out) before flying out. Susan slowly returned to her room, completely undressed herself, then completely redressed herself in the outfit.

She tossed the jumpsuit and the other outfit into the drawer in her room for later, and just like she'd expected she certainly felt a lot more heroic wearing the blue outfit. Maybe it was just something about primary colors, or maybe it was because to the best of her recollection no military in existence had ever considered purple an appropriate color to wear while going off to battle.

Not to mention upon even closer examination the outfit just about matched the color of her eyes. Susan suddenly stood still as a stature, stretching her body into the bathroom that was attached to her bedroom (in advertently proving the new outfit with hits first test which I passed with flying colors, stretching along with her body just as easily as her purple jumpsuit) so that she could use the mirror in it to run a more comprehensive comparison.

Sure it wasn't a perfect match, but it certainly had seemed like someone might have had a certain color on his mind at the time he designed the outfit. That said, she had no intention of actually asking that particular question or even thinking about it (if she could avoid doing it at least) near Reed.

Johnny liked the outfit, she preferred them over the old one, and something told her that outfits that apparently would last forever were probably not cheap to produce. She headed back to the lab and found that she was the one who was holding up the show, Ben had already returned from wherever he had gone (granted Ben had gotten pretty handy at flying through the reasonably narrows corridors of the Baxter Building and none of the other members of the team could match the speed he could reach while flying) and Johnny had probably never left. /So what do you think?\

Susan lazily lengthened, then retracted her arms so that those present could see just how efficient the new outfit was. "Well they work, so do you have anything else in particular you want to tell us about them?" Susan knew that she was more or less inviting the possibility of finding herself in a very dangerous situation, but she figured Reed disserved a chance to have some fun even if it made the rest of them feel vaguely narcoleptic.

/Well I've decided to call the somewhat unique properties that these outfits display unstable molecules. They automatically adjust themselves to fit the body of anyone wearing them, and they're also next to unbreakable. The practically upshot of which is that they're practically bullet-proof and uncutable.

That said, they don't have any particularly remarkable abilities to absorb kinetic energy, so if you are hit by a bullet even though it won't enter your body, the transfer of momentum is going to hurt, probably leave a bruise behind, and quite possibly even break a bone or two.\ Susan and Johnny both slowly turned their glances towards Ben, since he was clearly the one who this warning was intended for. /So now I guess with phase four and five over and done with, it'll be time to move on to phase six, no?\

--

Phase six was by no means easy, because it involved talking with people. It took time to schedule meetings, and it took even more time to first of all convince whoever they were meeting with that not only were they talking with someone who possessed superpowers, but that said person was actually on their side and not some kind of lab experiment gone wrong about to wreak revenge upon those who had brought them into the world.

But one after another the meetings took place, and by time the meeting was over, most people were cautiously agreeing that they wouldn't mind having the Fantastic Four available to them and they in turn would try and pull some strings to try and make things easier for them.

--

Which brought them eventually around to the planning for phase seven. "I am a bundle of nerves..." Even through the unstable molecule outfit with her right hand pressed against the sleave of her left arm, she could feel her pulse racing. /You're always a bundle of nerves, Susan.\

She shook a fist upwards at the container which housed Reed's brain and was currently several floors above her. "Yeah, right. I was remarkably calm about the entire going into space thing, and when we started developing superpowers it was my brother, rather then me who got freaked out by it."

/Not even remotely close to what I mean. You see when last I checked your body seems to have lost most of its skeletal structure and muscles. I'm not quite sure how it manages to support itself but there isn't a lot more to you than a bundle of nerves and some organs at the moment Susan.\

She buried her face in her hands, and felt her face threatening to slip through them, Reed's attempt at humor had been just that horrific. /It won't be that bad, all you've got to do is a give a speech in front of an audience, is that such a great task to ask from a former actress?\ Susan pulled her face back together and then looked up at the ceiling.

"Well when you're acting its just that acting, you're getting into a character rather than having to be yourself. Not to mention there's this thing called a 'script' that I've memorized, and the attention of the audience is usually pretty evenly spread among instead of a number of eyes equal to the double the attendance focused squarely on me." Reed's was at least trying to help, even if he wasn't coming very close to succeeding. /Well if you need a script I could telepathically whisper into your mind...\

Susan grimaced in disgust and she stuck her tongue out far enough that it landed on the floor with a wet "plop", even if it didn't stay there very long. "Having the director whisper lines to me from back stage? No thanks, any serious actress would rather take a shot at ad-libbing and possibly looking like a fool rather than just roll over and allow herself to sink to something like that. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some people to either deeply impress or scare the pants off of, though I suppose doing both isn't out of the question."

Without another word she calmly walked out the front door of the Baxter Building and came face-to-face with the expectant crowd and the podium with microphone attached waiting for her that she quickly took up position behind.

"Just to get things started, no this isn't some kind of overly complicated marketing ploy for a movie or whatever, we really have superpowers, and intend to use them to fight crime, save the day and all that other stuff. If you don't believe me just ask the man who'll be the Fantastic Four's eyes and ears, Benjamin Grimm, also known as Dragonfly."

After circling over head for nearly half an hour, at Susan's words (mentally relayed to him by Reed) Ben who had been flying a considerable distance above the crowd went into a steep dive which he pulled out of just in time to land right next to Susan drawing "oohs" and "ahhs" of appreciation.

"Or my brother, Jonathan Storm the Mandroid, who's the muscle of the group. He's about to do some serious property damage since he feels no dramatic entrance is complete without it, luckily we own said property..." Johnny calmly walked straight through the wall of the Baxter Building leaving a hole in it that looked exactly like the kind of imprint you'd see in a wall that a cartoon character had just exited through.

He waved to the crowd a few members of which numbly waved back. Susan meanwhile was silently wishing that her brother could have found a less costly way to make his arrival, but at least once they'd revealed themselves to the world they could hire contractors to take care of rebuilding whatever damage he'd just done to the Baxter Building.

"And as for myself I'm Susan, or Sue, or even Susy so long as you don't make it sound demeaning since as you'll see in a moment I'm quite flexible, Storm, who'll also be going by Ultra Woman. I suppose by virtue of being the normalest looking one of the bunch, I'll be the one who'll be serving as the group's mouthpiece pretty frequently. That said, I'm not just a pretty face... not even close."

To prove her point Susan extended her entire body upwards, keeping the proportions more or less the same, but doubling the scale. Then she retracted herself back to normal a polite smile on her face. "And that's the three of us who you'll be working with on anything approaching a normal basis."

Once they'd got over their collective shock, it didn't take long for one memeber of the crowd to notice a certain inconsistency that was right before there eyes. "If there are only three of you, why is there a '4' on your outfits?" Susan picked up a remote control that was resting on a shelf of the podium.

"I said there are only three of us you can expect to see and talk with. As the fourth member of our group, well, the role he plays should be fairly obvious..." She pressed the on button and a TV screen that had been set up before hand facing the crowd flickered to life, revealing the image of Reed Richards resting in a small glass sphere. "This is Big Brain, the mind of Reed Richards, one of the smartest men on the face of the Earth to start with, refined by no longer needing to worry about the trivial concerns that suck up countless hours lives, like: eating, breathing, or sleeping for a full third of every day." /Not to mention giving his supposed girlfriend a good roll in the hay, but they don't need to know that.\

It also dawned on Susana moment later that Reed didn't need to know what she had just been thinking either, but there was precious little she could do on that front. Trying to remind herself not to think about something only lead to her thinking about it in the process, so with nothing to gain by wasting time she got back to introductions.

"As weird as it sounds to all of you folks, and trust me it sounded every bit as weird to us at first, although Reed obviously lacks the capacity for any normal form of communication, he is now able to relay information directly from his mind to the minds of those around him.

Since he's up at the top of the Baxter Building you'll have to forgive him for staying silent." Susan hit the same button a second time and the TV screen flickered off. "And that's us. No masks, no secret identities, and no 'now have a pleasant day citizen' followed by soaring off faster then a speeding bullet.

We're not here to try and change the fundamental way the world works, we just want to help a little. We're not here to be policemen, I guess the most apt metaphor I could come up with is that we're like a SWAT team, when things get really dicey and more than the ordinary protectors of the thin blue line can handle, give us a call and we'll be the cavalry, the heavy artillery, or whatever you want to call the people who you count on to save you from trouble.

Aside from that, I can't promise I'll have time to use my elastic arms to rescue every single kitten that gets stuck in a tree, but we'll at least make a go at it. I think that more or less covers all the basics for now, so I'll turn the floor over to you folks. We'll answers questions, sign autographs, and give you a couple more displays of our powers if you want them. This is as new to us as it is to you, so lets just be cordial and try to get to know one another."

--

Susan would spend a couple hours doing just what she said she would: answering questions, (sending a few of them "upstairs" when she felt Reed would do a better job answering them then she could) glad handing people, signing autographs (to her surprise her right wrist never threatened to cramp up, so maybe Reed was right about her lack of muscles) and showing off her powers.

Eventually however she'd said that they'd have to call it a day. Given that people seemed sad to see the three members other Fantastic Four go, she took that as a good sign. But still, she could only take so much of being adored, and was glad to finally collapse into her bed. And 'collapse' was clearly the word for it to, by the time she had gone fully prone Susan wasn't much more than blue sheet. /So how did it go?\

Her neck had wound up on the floor, but now she raised it up to look at the wall with irritation. "You were watching through our eyes most of the time weren't you?" /Yes, but I'd like to hear your thoughts on the matter, and I don't mean read them. In the process of thinking about how to voice your recollection of the situation you're likely to come upon realizations that might not have previously occurred to you.\

Susan's body began to work its way towards a slightly more human appearance, though she was still more or less two-dimensional. "I already grasp the difference between thinking of something, and thinking about something, but thanks for spelling it out to me in four-syllable words. As for what I think, well you know how people are..."

Of course just like Reed had predicted no sooner had she said those words then she came to a realization concerning who exactly she was speaking to. Susan finished regaining a fully human three-dimensional appearance and sat up in her bed. "Okay, maybe _you_ don't. For right now, we're a spectacle.

There's nothing particularly wrong with that, in and of itself and I'm quite sure like many spectacles, just the fact that we're unique will help keep us in the public eye. For example, I'd wager it'll be at most a week before my brother gets an offer from some oil company to promote their company's products as the only brand he uses to keep his joints from squeaking or something along those lines.

If we're gonna be anything more than a spectacle though, well I think the burdens on the four of us to do it." /And the best way to do that?\ Susan remembered quite well what exactly phase eight was suppose to be comprised of.

"On the list of things not to do I'd suggest we avoid trying to get 'brand recognition' by paying for advertising. It'd probably end up having a 'big brother is watching you' vibe, especially once it becomes common knowledge that you can read people's minds, which is an ability any Orwellian dictator would just love to have at his command. We should do what we set out to do, be superheroes.

Stop some crimes, save some lives, review however the hell citizen's arrests work, make it clear that we don't intend to go anywhere anytime soon. I suppose we can get to work on that tomorrow after I finally get around to hiring all those lab assistants you wanted. You said you had an outfit that looks like normal civilian clothing made out of unstable molecules ready for me, right?" /Yes, why?\

Susan readjusted her position and laid her head down comfortably on the pillow a smug smile in her face. "Well, we are living in New York City. If we ever feel really hard up for crimes to thwart I'll just go for a walk in the wrong part of town at the 'right' time of day and by the time I walk out I'll probably need to figure out how to turn part of my body into a wheelbarrow so that I can deliver all the would-be muggers I ran across who will probably have a very surprised look on their faces when they realize just a bit too late that it's a bad idea to try and rob a superheroine."

As she spoke Susan elongated her right index finger and spun it about in the air like a tiny blue lasso. /That's a very pessimistic outlook.\ Susan just pressed her head to the pillow having no desire to defend her position. Mainly because it would have involved asking Reed what exactly she had to be optimistic about when that first night after the accident was the only one during which he'd been in the room with her when she'd fallen asleep?

--

All jokes aside, it should have just been a normal day out and about New York City for Susan. She was on her own, dressed in a white jacket (with a white t-shirt underneath) and black pair of pants that Reed had given the unstable molecule treatment so that she could stretch in them to her hearts content.

She also had a purse containing around two hundred dollars and all the other usual bric-a-brac (credit cards, lipstick, checkbook, pen, driver's licence, and a very durable tracking device sewn into the lining since now more than ever she didn't want anyone else to be claiming to be Susan Storm) slung over her shoulder.

After spending close to an entire month cooped up with Ben, Johnny, and Reed she probably would have gone insane from the boredom if it hadn't been for testing out her powers, so she was intent on finding some way of dealing with the tedium. She still had more practicing to do of course (there was always more practicing) but all training herself to be a superheorine and no play made Jill a dull girl, so she'd decided to just go for a walk, a normal activity it'd been far too long since she'd last engaged in.

Not to say Susan was just going to walk in a circle (or zig zag, or square, or rectangle) she also planned to pop into the first bookstore she came across. That money would be useful for acquiring a paperback or two with which she could commit a vicious homicide upon her free time.

Normally Susan was a fan of romance novels, but at the moment she had a certain feeling that one was or another she was going to end up gravitating towards the science fiction section. With her current downward turn her love life had taken, a story in which the two lovers suffered excruciating hardships before finally being together would leave her halfway between a sullen "well where is my happy ending?" and bile-spewing rage.

There was also the added bonus that it would be nice to see that as weird as her life currently was, humanity had it within their collective souls to imagine someone living one which was even stranger. Of course before that could happen, she needed to be able to get to a bookstore, something that the world had other ideas about letting her do.

She was simply walking down a street when she saw police car go by with its sirens blaring, and deciding that since she was at least semi-dressed for the occasion, she might as well see what was going on. Susan broke into a run, not using her powers, at least not obviously.

Some of the tests Reed had put her through had revealed that her endurance had been increased well beyond normal human levels. Unless she actively used her power she wouldn't be setting any land speed records, but she could keep up a good jog longer than most marathon runners. She didn't have too much trouble finding the source of the disturbance, or guessing exactly it was.

Susan might not have ever even considered outfitting any vehicle she owned with a police scanner, but she'd seen enough action movies to recognise what had to be a bank robbery turned hostage situation when she saw one. She ducked into an alley opposite the main event and quickly hid her purse among the refuse in a nearby dumpster (careful to liberally burry it so no one would notice it if they were just walking by (it wasn't exactly glamorous, but she'd yet to figure out where Superman kept his wallet) and then went about a quick transformation.

Sadly it was nothing as impressive spinning around fast enough to leave her wearing an entirely different set of clothing. Instead Susan decided to make like she was playing limbo and see just how low she could go, reducing her body to a white, black, and pink smear on the ground. In this form she didn't attract much attention and was easily able to slide across the ground right past the police officers who were responsible for keeping civilians at bay (and happened to be paying attention to people, not puddles) stealthily manuevering herself untill she was right next to the feet of the officer who was probably in charge of the show given that he had a bullhorn.

"Need a little help?" The black-haired green-eyed police officer looked down, and for a moment understandably given that he had just been addressed by a tag blob) looked like he didn't believe his eyes. Before he started to seriously worry about the stress of his job getting to him, Susan reformed herself, causing the look she was receiving to go from complete shock to a glare of accusation. "So you're that girl..."

Susan crossed her arms, shrugged, and glared right back. "Woman, actually. I was just passing through and it looked like you could use some help. If I was mistaken then I'll just leave this to the professionals since I won't try to hide the fact that this is my first time." Sure enough just like she'd planned, by actively admitting that she was more or less still a complete and utter naif when it came to catching criminals, she'd left the police officer with no adequate retort.

"Tell you what, why don't we go some place a little more out of the way and discuss this... Lou?" Another police officer looked over and the one Susan was talking to flipped the bullhorn to him. Then Susan followed the police officer (drawing plenty of strange looks as several of New York's Finest obviously wondered how exactly they'd missed her walking right by them) outside the line boundary line that civilians weren't suppose to cross.

Susan approved of that, since out of uniform her powers were the only real proof she had of her status as a superheroine. "Well they didn't exactly have courses on working with superheroes in the academy, so apparently this will be a new experience for both of us. The guys in there have already released one hostage who let us know just what a bad idea it would be to try and use force.

Apparently the half-a-dozen guys who are pulling this job planned to turn it into some kind of siege from the start. They've got an infrared trip wire set up just inside the place that if anybody breaks it, the thing will set off a couple Claymore mines aimed directly at the hostage who they currently have corralled inside the vault itself.

They've also to some more infrared trip wires set up in the ventilation system, hell if I know how, so that's out as an entry point as well. Two guys in the vault with most of the hostages, two more in the main room with a hostage in one hand and a gun in the other, and two more with their guns trained on the door just in case we do try to rush them. All six guys apparently wearing Kevlar just about anywhere you can strap it to your body.

In short, a nightmare waiting to happen. If we try to tackle them head-on, a lot of innocent people are going to die. At the moment all we can really do is stall and hope they make a mistake. If you can figure out a way to make this all better then guess you deserve to call yourself Ultra Woman. If you can't, then get out of here and wait untill Lex Luthor shows up with a stolen nuclear warhead."

Susan glared at the man, she could have done without the sarcasm that accompanied the last sentence, but she had to admit that from what she'd just heard the situation was going to be a tough nut to crack /Reed please tell me that you can still hear me...\ Her message sent she held her breath for five of the longest seconds of her life. /You're still well within my range, though I was rather busy in the lab untill you called, what is it?\

Susan quickly sketched over the same details the police officer had told her ending with a question about whether Reed thought there was anything she could do to help. /Tricky, very tricky. Hmm... interesting, it's rather like a puzzle where you have to carefully shift pieces without ever undermining its structural integrity in the process. I never realized that thwarting law breakers could be such a cerebral task. Ask the man you're dealing with how he's sure about the infrared trip wires in the ventilation shafts.\ She did.

"We didn't just take their word for it if that's what you're wondering, we sent some men in there with infrared goggles. The vents aren't exactly spacious, so there's no way to for a normal person to move through them without..." Apparently an idea occurred to Susan and the police officer more or less simultaneously, though Reed had evidently realized it a bit before either of them.

"Okay, but even if you could get in, you're still only one woman..." Susan smiled at this point. "Well not just any woman, if you hand me your side arm I can wrap my lips around the barrel, pull the trigger, and spit the round back out about twenty seconds later..." The police officer didn't feel like putting her word to the test. "I'd rather not waste the money, bullets are expensive.

I'll set you up with a pair of infrared goggles, try to give them back in one piece when you're done saving the day. And remember anyone dies..." Susan nodded and held out her hands, which were shortly holding a pair of red-lensed infrared goggles. "Thanks, and don't worry about getting a helicopter or anything else fancy, I can see myself up to the roof."

She walked off a bit deciding that giving the bank a wide berth was the best way to avoid making her approach obvious, before finally selecting a building which was halfway down the block from the bank. She increased the length of her body untill she was able to slither onto the top of the building drawing more than a few gasps of surprise from anyone who was watching.

Then she increased the length of her legs till she was easily able to step from one building to another, and Susan hoped that any news crews on the scene had the intelligence to be filming something else at the moment, or that the robbers inside the bank weren't watching what was being broadcast about them.

A few short steps later she was on the roof of the bank and sure enough four SWAT team members gaped at her with slack-jawed surprise from beneath their helmets. "No time to chat boys, I've got lives to save."

The entrance to the ventilation shaft was obvious, and after slipping the goggles on she started to slither down it. Once she'd gotten her body fully inside the ventilation shaft Susan decided to take a moment to gather her thoughts, not to mention the thoughts of a man who was much more likely to have a plan that would let everyone involved in this robbery walk away with their lives intact. /Okay Reed. Here I am, now what is your plan?\

He didn't keep her in suspense for long, something she was very grateful for. /Rescuing the majority of the hostages in the vault has to come first, since the robbers in the main lobby probably have a manual detonation switch for the mines, which they could doubtlessly activate before you subdued them. If they've managed to get inside the vault in the first place, then they probably left a way for you to get in as well.\

Susan chuckled to herself as she inched forward a little bit, and saw the first infrared trip wire come into view. /Are you insinuating that I couldn't squeeze my way into a bank vault in pristine condition if I wanted to?\ /Well I don't remember ever testing your powers against something as supposedly airtight as a vault door, so I honestly can't say.

Anyway, after you've rescued those hostages and dealt with two of the robbers, that will only leave the four in the main lobby. There will doubtlessly be an exit from the ventilation shaft through which you can fit your body into that, if you can deal with one of them with each of your limbs simultaneously that should make it a clean sweep.\

Susan thinned down and carefully twisted around a infrared trip wire that doubtlessly would have been impossible for any human to evade. She had to dodge another one before she made it to the first downward opening, at which point she removed her goggles. Then she extended her head through the grating and took a look around. There was plenty of space between the vault and the main lobby so it was unlikely that the four robbers she'd get around to dealing with would see her while she focused on their two friends.

She quickly poured herself downwards through the vent like a multi-colored drop of honey. As she reformed herself after hitting the ground she saw a small hole in the vault door, and it was all Susan could do could do not to whistle with joy. The two gunmen inside would doubtlessly notice if the vault door started to swing open, but she supremely doubted they expected what Ultra Woman was about to do to them!

She pressed herself up against the hole and began to slide through it as easily as a fox entered into a rabbit's burrow. She soon had a good view of the situation and saw exactly what she expected, two men standing behind a pair of Claymore mines (their distinctive shape made them easy to recognize) with automatic weapons gripped tightly in both hands, and a frightened mob of innocent people cowering against the back end of the vault.

Susan abruptly broke her earlier promise to about not shouting a warning to her opponents before she attacked them. "Pardon me gentlemen, but do you mind if I ask to see your permits for those things?" The men weren't able to resist the siren song of curiosity she had spun for them, and they also weren't able to look one way and point their guns another.

That was exactly what Susan wanted, because it meant the two guns pointed at her instead of at the innocent people, not only would they do much less (in the sense of "no") damage to her, but it also made her next trick much easier. She shot her arms out, wrapped them around the two rifles and yanked them from the two men's hands. One of them just looked at her with complete surprise, but the other reacted more violently. "Fuck this!"

Either having realized how pointless it would be to shoot Susan, or out of sheer malice and wanting to end as many lives as he could, the man pulled out a small pistol he'd tucked into his pants, and yanked hard on the back of it, sliding a bullet into its chamber and then started firing at his captives.

Of course Susan had been able to guess what he was planned to do the moment she'd seen the light reflecting off the gun's barrel. She drew her legs out from the hole into the vault, momentarily managed to balance there before pushing off against the door and went flying forward.

Susan couldn't bounce faster than a bullet, but she had a head start and was in front of the barrel by the time the first round left it, at which point she quickly stretched herself into a giant blue barrier between ceiling and floor. She felt the robber still pulling the trigger untill his gun ran dry and felt the mild tickle of seven lead bullets hitting her body and then bouncing off.

Once she knew he'd shot his clip, Susan quickly resumed her human appearance, smiled at the two men (because anyone who put innocent lives at stake just to try and make some money at least disserved a moment or two of pants-pissing terror) before she used a new technique she'd been practicing with Reed for the first time "in the field" as the saying went.

Her arms lengthened themselves dramatically untill they distance between her fists, and her opponents' faces was nil. She could stretch very fast when she wanted to, which built up a lot of momentum, not as much as the centrifugal force punch, but then she'd only been trying to knock the two silly rather then kill them, and sure enough both men tumbled to the floor.

Then she turned around (making sure she turned her entire body around rather than just twisting her head, because innocent civilians she had come to rescue didn't deserve to end up with soiled undergarments) and gave a smile of a completely different nature.

"Don't worry folks I'm on your side." A brown-haired woman who was crouched low to the ground so as to better hold onto her child looked first at Susan and then down at the mines which still remained a silent but equally deadly threat. "Can you disarm those things...?" Susan thought long and hard for a moment. /Hey Reed, this may just be my knowledge of various bits of fiction talking, but I think Claymore mines upon detonation release a bunch of really small metal spheres moving really fast, am I right?\

This time there was a long pause, leaving Susan with no choice but try to make it look like she was in deep thought instead of simply waiting for a proverbial phone to ring with her answer, but one way or another she eventually got an answer did arrive. /Ben agrees with you.\ Finally Susan felt it was safe to smile. "To be perfectly honest I doubt it, luckily if I do this right I shouldn't need to. Watch and learn ladies and gentlemen..."

Susan stretched out her arms and carefully encircled each of the mines completely then she applied pressure to them. Sure enough her ham-handed approach lead to the things going off like fireworks on the fourth of July, luckily Susan's hands made more or less a perfect place for them to vent their rage without accomplishing anything at all.

Once they'd spent their wrath Susan opened up her hands, and with a cacophony of tiny clatters (which hopefully didn't alert anyone outside the vault) countless small spheres dropped to the ground. "There you go. You shouldn't have too much trouble keeping track of these two for a while, I've got a few more lives to save and villains to deal with..."

Susan made her first return trip (through the hole in the vault) with ease, and her second one back into the ventilation shaft provided little more in the way of difficulty. She put the goggles back on just to be on the safe side, since tripping the wires might in some way alert the remaining four robbers to the fact that they had a hundred and twenty pounds of angry (not so much at them -- though she was upset they were metaphorically between her and the nearest bookstore -- but what was the world coming to if a woman couldn't sublimate her ever mounting sexual frustration by pummelling a few criminals?) superheroine headed their way.

Once she'd managed to take up position above the main lobby she slowly squeezed her head down through another shaft, and luckily enough none of the men were looking up at the moment. She withdrew her head, took a deep breath to get herself under control and then went at it with all she was worth.

Her legs descended a little behind her arms but that was okay, as the former two limbs shot down to the floor, and before the two gunmen could realize anything was wrong her arms had wrapped around them and yanked them into the air. The sudden shock of being hefted into the air and finding themselves hanging upside down made them drop their weapons and cry out in terror.

The other two turned around, just in time for Susan's legs to ensnare both of them, and firmly press their weapons against the two robber's chests, leaving them unable to fire in any direction but straight down. The four writhed and wriggled like fish on a hook, but Susan's elastic limbs easily held all of them still, and before long just like she had practiced, by applying pressure to their chests she left them unconscious, at which point she lowered them softly to the ground.

She slid out of the ventilation system, taking the goggles with her. She used them to easily locate the source of the trip wires set up around the front door (just in case they lead to some explosives besides the ones she had already dealt with) then opened the front door and stretched out a hand to calmly deposit the goggles back in the somewhat startled hands of the police officer who had made them available to her in the first place.

He was also the first one to enter into the bank his gaze shifting between the four unconscious robbers and the two former hostages who were equally still out of sheer shock. "The pair in the vault?" Susan gave the man a smug smile as if she was slightly insulted that he would even ask such a thing. "I not only took care of them I also 'disarmed' their mines, just make not sure to slip on the loose ball-bearings when walk in."

The man looked around one last time and then calmly removed his hat. "Well then, I suppose if you can keep producing performances of this kind of quality I could get used to having folks like you hang around." A red-haired woman who up until a few moments ago had been a hostage finally found her voice. "I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but who are you?"

Before Susan could answer the police officer did, striding boldly forward to confront the woman face-to-face. "What kind of a question is that? She's Susan Storm of the Fantastic Four, also known as Ultra Woman." At that point Susan had to admit that she could deffiently get used to the warm feeling that had blossomed just above her stomach and was slowly starting to spread through her body.

--

Even more importantly Susan was able to successfully retrieve her purse from its hiding place (and it didn't smell too much worse for the wear) though she still had to spend around ten minutes signing autographs before she was able to get back to her original task of finding a bookstore.

--

To her credit she found one, and by the time the next morning rolled around she had to admit that the compared to her normal literary interests, a tale about female starship captain and her six legged pet/sidekick was proving a nice palate cleanser.

Especially because even though the female lead was obviously going to save the day when the fecal matter hit the ventilation system, it was equally obvious that she wouldn't be acquiring a male companion in the process. She looked up from her reading (she'd brought it to the breakfast table with her) when Johnny tossed a newspaper in front of her. "Well..."

He said the words in his best (though of course not very successful) attempt at making Susan feel like a little girl who had done something wrong, and should explain herself this very instant. She quickly thinned down the index a finger of her left hand to keep track of her page before grabbing the paper with her right hand.

The foremost headline said the entire story in all its alliterative glory "Stretchy Superheroine Saves Hostages and Captures Crooks." The article gave a recap of how events unfolded or at least as much of the events as anyone besides Reed or Susan could be expected to have known.

Although it seemed to be somewhat on the fence about the entire thing, they obviously approved of the fact that no one had gotten killed and that Susan had been so personable afterwards. Of course one the underling message she picked up on was that the moment she or any other member of the Fantastic Four screwed the pooch, the citizens of New York would know just where to send the bill, which gave Susan premonitions that the group would be spending a fair amount of Reed's money on replacing wrecked cars and other bits of damaged property in the future.

"What can I say that isn't in the article little brother? Okay it wasn't exactly my brilliant plan, I was working with Reed most of the time, but you can't exactly expect the first edition of any form of mass media to get things one hundred percent correct." Johnny glowered at her, he hated it when she called him 'little brother' and thus she only referred to him as such when she distinctly felt the need to get his goat.

"Not that, I mean if there were bad guys to deal with, why didn't you contact me?" Susan balanced her chin on her right hand giving her brother a look of pity mixed with inquisitively. "In a small part because you were a long way off, as I understand it hostage-takers don't tend to be the most patient people in the world. In a large part because even if you were there, what exactly would you have done?

Probably take the brute force approach, bash through a wall, and promptly get a lot of people killed. This was a situation that called for a certain, cliché as the expression is, feminine touch." Johnny unable to come up with an argument about how he could of helped was reduced to glaring sulkily at Susan across the breakfast table for a few moments before he grabbed the newspaper back from her.

"Fine, fine, fine, for today at least. But I'm gonna find out what the telephone number is of this Parker guy who took the pictures of you and give him a chance to get a bonanza of photos of the Mandroid out on the town and saving folks in really cool ways!" Susan began to search about the room for something to serve as a more permanent bookmark than her finger. "Yeah, you do that."

Johnny shot his own glare back (even if Susan only saw it in peripheral vision) at her suggesting that indeed he would live up to his word. "Don't take it so hard, Metalhead, so Susy's go the limelight at the moment, if Reed's right sooner or later we'll all get our shot at it." Susan hopped Ben was right, and more importantly feverently wished that no matter how important the Fantastic Four became they avoided having their names mentioned in one particular section of any newspaper -- the obituaries.


	6. Chapter 6

Original Twist

Chapter Six, Thrilling Superheroics: In which Susan Storm goes to exotic places and meets exotic people.

It would be about a month after the Fantastic Four had reviled themselves to the public in general when they got the telepathic "call" to join Reed in the briefing room located one floor below his lab.

Once they had entered and without prompting picked chairs to sit in, the lights flicked off, and a projection screen turned itself on, though for the moment they were only looking at a blank white square on the wall before them.

/This could be the big one. Well, I suppose that might not be quite accurate. It would be better to say this might be our first big one, a test of our superhero mettle as it were...\ Johnny yawned loudly, not bothering to cover his mouth. "We get the idea, fate of millions, if not billions hanging in the balance, in other words, exactly the kind of thing that superheroes are supposed to deal with. So quit talking it up and either show us something interesting or I'll call an usher and ask for some popcorn and a jumbo soda."

Reed (wherever he was) clicked something, and an image appeared on the screen. It seemed like a large sink hole in the middle of some desert, and to judge by the quality of the imagine it wasn't a slide, which made her momentarily wonder why exactly she'd expected Reed to give them a slide show when he could have made a Power Point presentation instead.

"Well it looks like somebody picked a bad place to invest in a time share." At that moment Susan wouldn't have objected to having a bowl of popcorn herself, but was forced to settle for only imagining what kind of sound the few unpopped kernels that you could always find if you looked deeply enough would have made when they struck the back of her brother's head.

/This is no time for levity Johnny. The government was building a nuclear power plant in Diablo Canyon California, and you're looking at all that's left of a considerable number of man hours and capital." Ben squirmed in his chair slightly, Reed had yet to invent one that perfectly suited his wings. "So do we have any ideas what caused it?"

Click. The screen shifted. Susan to her shame without intending to jumped out of her chair, her body distorting itself every which way imaginable leaving her looking like some kind of strange land-dwelling sea urchin. "Oops..."

Susan quickly pulled herself together and retook her seat. "Sorry about that boys, my two x chromosomes conspired against my good sense." Johnny openly snickered. "Heh nice job Reed, it's not every day someone manages to scare the wits out of my sister. Now seriously, what happened to the power plant?"

Reed's mental voice made it quite clear that if there was a joke going around, he wasn't in on it. /This is what happened to it according to US satellite reconnaissance. Or at least as much as the government was willing to hand over to me.\ Johnny stopped chucking. "Okay, I don't mean to be Mr. Glass Half Empty, but would it be so much to ask that for our first run as superheroes we fight some supervillians who have powers in the same general range as ours, and not freaking Godzillia?"

The image on the he screen was of a HUGE green monster whose entire body was as wide across as the nuclear power plant would have been. To judge by the two images they'd seen so far, the monster had sprung out of the ground, pulled the reactor beneath the surface of the earth and then retreated. "I mean honestly, how are we supposed to fight something that could probably crush me like a tin can with one claw? Unless you've got some kind of Monster Begone bomb, or better yet laser and all we have to do is cross the streams when we catch sight of it!"

Johnny was gibbering slightly and the other two (vaguely human) occupants of the room glared at him, though he was unlikely to pick it up in the darkness. /I don't have any such weaponry designed at the moment. But the key thing to bare in mind Johnny is that we don't need to destroy this thing for our mission to be successful, if you'll give me a minute to explain why.

There have been other nuclear reactors that have been destroyed recently, one in Russia and one in France, and unlike the one in California, both of those nuclear reactors were functional. The results weren't as bad as if they'd spontaneously melted down, in fact there hasn't been an radioactive fallout as all, but the attacks have playing havoc with their power grids. This in turn led to some rather dramatic political fallout, everyone is pointing fingers at everyone else, and people are very tense.

If someone doesn't come up with some kind of explanation soon then the problems caused by a lack of energy are going to be the least of anyone's problems. Which is where we come in, it's our job to find out just who is behind this monster, controlling it, and hopefully where it will strike next.\

Ben nodded slowly. "Pinpoint in-and-out kinda job, makes more sense than any of us going up against something that should be left to guys armed with bunker busters. But where exactly are we supposed to start looking for the guy controlling it? Since we already stick out like sore thumbs on the streets of New York, we'd look downright ridiculous anywhere else."

Another click and another image, this one of a relatively unimpressive-looking island. /Well when I was contacted by a government agent, I got to work reviewing seismic readings the world over during the attacks. As you'd expect something as big as this monster can't move without certain machines noticing it.

It seems like the monster departs and returns to a certain point before and after each attack. It's a small island in the Atlantic Ocean, and it's where we're headed with more or less all possible haste." Susan felt one of her eyebrows twitch as she detected a bit of grammar she hadn't expected to hear. "Wait a moment 'we're going' and not 'you're going' in the sense that you are going to be coming with us Reed?"

The lights came back on and the screen turned off. /My telepathy is of a limited range as you all know, and there's no way I'd be able to maintain a connection if you went to our destination the so called "Monster Isle" without me along for the ride. It's unlikely I'll be able to achieve much through my telekinesis, but my ability to help you communicate on another through telepathy should be readily on hand. As the saying goes, better to have it and not need it, then need it and not have it.\

Ben shot a benign smile her way. "You look surprised Susy, what's the matter, did you really have your heart set on playing Reed's Angels? Well I suppose you've got the looks and I got the wings, but all your brother has to his credit is having plenty of silicone go into his construction."

Johnny looked for a moment like he was going to pick up his chair and either throw, or start swinging it at Ben, but Susan stretched her body between the two cutting that particular problem off before it could come to blows. "You two aren't fighting each other while we've got a world to save."

Johnny stood up and hung his head in mock chastisement. "Whatever you say mom, I mean sis." As he started to walk towards the door Susan extended a leg which he promptly tripped over and fell face first on the floor, leaving a large dent in it. "Hey no fair" "It's what you deserved whether or not you realize it."

/So this is how the scientists at NASA felt went they were looking over those first lucky primates who would be doing such a service for their country by going into space...\ All three of them had enough knowledge of history to understand exactly what Reed had suggested, and a single look was exchanged.

It was promptly followed by them raising their hands above their heads and let loose with unintelligible cries of "Oohh-oooh-oooh!" in the best of approximation of a monkey's cry that they could manage. /I need to stop giving you three ideas.\ Ben lowered his hands and glared up at the ceiling. "I hate to break it to you Big Brain, but giving us ideas is just about all you're good for these days."

--

/And we're here.\ Susan began to unbuckle her seatbelt as did the others, Johnny tearing his slightly in the process. "You know, if you could have made it that easy to get to the moon then we would probably be all on talk shows right now instead of about to go try and find out who is controlling some kind of giant green lizard and how they're doing it."

Susan didn't bother with making use of the ladder, instead she poured herself out of her seat, taking a moment to mock her brother in the process. "What's the matter Johnny, all of a sudden getting cold feet?" The ladder protested slightly as Johnny grabbed a more solid hold on it than any ordinary human could achieve.

"Not even close sis, I was saying that in a good kind of way. I mean who wants to just be one more boring celebrity talking to people about how boring their life is beyond the one interesting thing they ever did? Who knows, maybe I'll actually get to punch out that Godzilla look-alike and then I'll have done two interesting things in my life!"

Johnny was the second one out of the prototype rocket that was the groups' main mode transportation to places that were a considerable distance away with Ben not far behind. /Forgive the inherent redundancy in the act, but you can all hear me can't you?\ Ben out of reflex pressed a hand to his ear, and the headset he wasn't actually wearing. "You're coming through loud, clear, and multisyllabic, just like normal. So now that we're here where exactly should we take this little field trip?"

/The island was apparently created by volcanic activity, though all reports say there hasn't been any here in several human lifetimes. See if you can find an entrance down into the huge caverns that the monster we're searching for must dwell in. In particular Ben I'd suggest you do a little aerial reconnaissance and see if anything jumps out at you.\

Ben nodded and then leapt into the air, his wings beating and in a few moments he was soaring ahead of the Storm siblings. "Show off." Susan turned to look at her brother. "If you could fly you wouldn't have even waited for Reed to give out orders before you took off." Johnny shrugged as he began to slowly march towards the volcano at the center of the island. "I know that, but I can't so, show off." Since he was momentarily in front of her, Johnny had no chance of seeing Susan's smile as she quickly doubled the length of her legs and more or less blew right past him. "SHOWOFF!"

For about a minute it actually did feel a little like a game (even if no one was quite sure what the rules were) or possibly some kind of field trip. Susan was half tempted to pick up some particularly interesting rock, wave it in the air and ask for Reed to give her an explanation about exactly what kind of rock it was (since they were on a volcanic island she would guess igneous -- Susan might never have a PhD, let alone several of them, but she hadn't slept through her middle and high school chemistry classes) and how it had gotten there.

Sadly all the general bouncy good feelings evaporated when indeed just like Reed had predicted, something jumped out at Ben. This particular something was a giant green monster. Not the one they were looking for though, this one was a marginally more manageable size (in the sense that it was only about the size of an extra large RV) also its body structure was different. Instead of claws it had four hoofed legs, wings sprouted from the thing's body which allowed it to rise into the air, and most dramatic of all, from its neck sprouted three individual heads, giving it a total of six eyes, and far too many teeth.

To his credit, Ben kept his head on his shoulders and thought rather than screamed, well it was more like a combination of the two. /My sweet Aunt Petunia! I'm coming back to you two, and Reed now would be a great time to come up with a plan for dealing with that thing, cause at the moment I'm all out of chaff...\

Ben went into a dive heading back towards his two companions, and Susan quickly back peddled to bring herself close to Johnny. She stretched her left out, wrapping it around a nearby rocky outcropping, while she began to swing her right arm above her head. /Susan...\ "Little busy at the moment preparing to rope myself a monster Reed." /Here...\

All of a sudden Ultra Woman felt her mind more or less flooded with information. It took her moment to figure out what it was and how to sort through it, but once she figured out what its purpose was she almost forgot about the monster.

It was numbers, lots and lots of numbers, all of them dealing with the momentum, action and reaction. The closest she was able to come to describing it was that one moment she was just eyeballing the situation, planning to let her arm go at the moment it felt right, the next she had a complex targeting system working over the problem, figuring out all the variables, and ready to let her know the exact moment to strike.

Having never felt particularly adept in the ways of the Force, Susan was pretty sure having Reed run the numbers for her was probably greatly increasing the odds of her actually pulling off her coming endeavor successfully. She shook her head slightly, had she really just used the phrase 'coming endeavor', even in her thoughts? Somehow she suspected numbers might not be the only thing Reed was giving her at the moment, regardless of whether or not it was intentional.

Then she knew that there was no further time for ruminations as Ben went hurtling past barely ten feet above her head, close enough that she could feel his passing generate a small gust of wind. Then she stopped twirling her arm and extended it straight. It sailed forward and with the kind of unerring accuracy that was almost beautiful, it draped itself around the monster's middle head as neatly as any necktie.

Ben broke his dive and shot upwards, with the monster mimicking his actions a few moments later. Susan pulled for all she was worth, wrapping her legs around two different rocks so that by distributing her burden there was less chance that the monster would be able to simply break whatever Susan had anchored herself to.

But still the thing weighed too much for her to affect its flight path to any real degree, it couldn't pull her entire body after it, but it could keep tugging at its leash and forcing her right arm to grow longer. She wasn't exactly sure of how far her arm could stretch before she felt some ill effects, but Susan knew she had no desire to find out.

"Hey sis, look like you could use hand or two. Tell you what, now that you managed to hook him, I'll reel him in..." Johnny grabbed hold of Susan's arm and then he pulled. The amount of weight that Susan could lift with her limbs (according to Reed's tests) was far greater than the human norm, it measured in the high hundreds of pounds, and perhaps with practice she'd eventually be able to reach and surpass that magical mark of one full "K".

In short, it wouldn't have been that much of an embellishment to say Susan possessed the strength of ten regular women, even if the actual number was probably somewhere between five and eight. The amount of weight that her brother could lift was measured in tons, in his limbs dwelled the kind of strength that was usually reserved for heavy construction machinery.

When he yanked on Susan's right arm, the monster suddenly let loose with a screech of dismay as it found itself being pulled from the sky. It tried to alter its trajectory, but wasn't fast enough and slammed to the ground about twenty feet away from Susan and Johnny where it lay unmoving.

Johnny let go of Susan's arm, and for her part she decided it was time to start looking less like a tripod and more like a woman again. "Cool, but is that thing dead or something...?" The two exchanged looks, neither of them had any desire to poke the beast just to see if it responded by snapping its three jaws.

/No, I'm still getting mental readings from it, though to judge from how they've changed the impact obviously knocked it unconscious. You also might be interested in knowing that the creature doesn't actually have three separate brains, which in retrospect would disregarding the inherent redundancy of the system would probably be a bad idea since it would require coordination of all three minds to beat its wings. Unless of course two of the minds are under normal conditions subservient to the third which...\

Ben landed on top of the fallen monster and let out a loud disinterested cough. "Fascinating as all that is to you, why don't you stick to the stuff we need to know. Like, should we be trying to find something we can use for a rope to tie to the hood so we can take it back home with us?"

Johnny looked around, saw the very obvious lack of vines or other makeshift rope and came to exactly the conclusion that Susan expected. "I say we use my sister, who's with me?" Luckily now that he wasn't thinking about how this weird creature worked, Reed wasn't in the mood for foolishness. /Don't worry about it. The three of you need to press onward.

If nothing else, I think it is safe to assume given that the creature you just encountered was a living being rather than some kind of robot, the thing which destroyed the nuclear power plant was as well. I suppose we could consider it a biological weapon, of sorts at least, though that particular phrase is usually reserved for infection vectors rather than in the sense of giant living beings.

But still, it is most likely biological in nature, and if it weren't being purposely used with intent of inflicting damage then there's no way it would target three nuclear power plants so close together...\ Susan decided that a metaphor was necessary, before this situation could get even more out of hand.

"Reed, imagine that the point which the three of us care about is one mile south of your current location. You just got on a plane heading north at just barely subsonic speeds." There was a long period of silence and then Reed chimed back in again. /To refocus our attention on the task at hand then, our objectives haven't changed, we need to find out who is controlling the monster.

At least now we know the means of control is unlikely to be something as simple as flipping switches, pulling levers, and entering in coordinates. Whatever we're going to find out is probably going to be much... stranger than simply some madman with a doomsday weapon he created in his private lab.\

Looks were exchanged and then Johnny shrugged. "Hey, speaking as the guy who has gotten used to having conversations with a psychic brain, I think we're all probably getting pretty used to strange, so we might as well keep going forward."

The three who had their feet on the ground (well one of them currently had his feet on a monster's back) exchanged nods. /I think given recent events it'd be a good idea if you stuck as close together as possible since we're obviously at our most effective when working in tandem...\

--

The group were slowly working their way up the side of the volcano (and were about 3/4ths of the way up) when it happened. Johnny put his heavy foot down and the ground refused to support it. "Damn it all..." He began to jerk at his foot, but despite the fact that the ground had refused to bear the weight of his entire body, it also stubbornly refused to let it go at the same time.

"Could one of you guys give me a hand here?" Ben nodded and took a short hop before managing to get into the air, hovering about a foot above Johnny. "You'll be free in a moment kiddo..." Then he grabbed hold of Johnny's arm and pulled while flapping his wings for all they were worth. Indeed he managed to get Johnny's leg free from the hole it had made, but in the process, the hole got bigger, much bigger.

One moment Johnny was standing there with Ben holding onto him, the next the ground had given way beneath the two of them, and Ben was too shocked to let go of Johnny, causing both of them to plummet downwards into a black abyss. Then, just rub to salt in the wound (something that Susan had noticed the universe loved doing to her so much she had started to wonder when it would run out and be forced to switch to pepper) the hole vanished as more rocks collapsed towards one another leaving a criss-cross patchwork barrier behind.

She got down on her knees and carefully felt out the series of rocks. "I think I could squeeze my way through there and go after them Reed..." She could feel cracks wide enough that she knew she could fit through them, but there was no promise of more cracks farther down. /I'd suggest against that Susan. In the darkness it'd be far too easy to get lost unable to tell up for down, and I haven't tested what your tolerance for low oxygen environments is yet.\

Susan took a step away from the hole, though her eyes remained firmly locked on it. "I'm not disagreeing with you, but I'd feel a lot less like I need to start winding my way through whatever gap I can find if you could tell me how exactly Ben and Johnny are doing at the moment."

/I'm getting the same mental reading from both of them, unconscious but also more or less unharmed. If their hearts' were pumping a greater amount of blood to any particular part of their bodies, in an attempt to form scabs then I'd be aware of it. At least with Ben, I'm not quite sure if Johnny's body has the ability to heal itself as effectively as a normal human one, but we aren't about to find out yet.\

Susan kicked at some pebbles and finally turned her attention back to the top of the volcano. "Okay, so they're fine for the moment, and Johnny has Ben to look after them. I don't suppose you could somehow give them some kind of mental shock to help them wake up so that I'd know exactly what their situation is?" /The human brain is an infinitesimally delicate piece of machinery, and I've seen what overclocking can do to a computer. I'd rather not find out what happens when you combine the two.\

She kicked more pebbles, and turned her eyes up towards the top of the volcano. "Okay fine. So I'm gonna work my way up to the top of that thing and then maybe I'll be able to find my way down, that's the plan right?" /Right.\ WHUMP!

The next thing Susan knew, she was laying flat on the ground. She twisted her midsection around so that she could look up at what had struck her. It was a giant monster that looked to be about nine feet tall and had brown skin. If it stood still Susan probably would have considered it nothing but an odd shaped boulder.

This new monster was apparently surprised that it hadn't managed to smash some part of Susan's body with its blow. It now raised up one of its large legs and stepped down on her. /Reed you can pick up thoughts right?\ She twisted about underneath the thing's leg, but she was being pressed down on too firmly to squeeze free. Taking another approach to that problem, she increased the length of her body until there was more of her than could fit under the monster's foot, allowing the upper half of her body to rise up before the monster.

/Yes I can Susan...\ The creature drove a rocky hand forward but Susan easily darted to the side avoiding. "Then why didn't you warn me about this one?" She punched the creature right in its face with a lengthened arm, but the creature didn't seem to care. Not that she had particularly expected her rubbery limb to dent its rocky hide in the first place.

It tried to grab her again, and after once more twisting just out of its reach Susan decided it was time to gets some leverage on this situation. She stretched her body out even further, and after looping herself over the creature's face (blinding it in the process) she began to slide down its back. /Well ashamed as I am to admit it, the creature's 'thoughts' are apparently basic enough that it 'flew below my mental radar' so to speak...\

Susan wrapped one of her arms around both of the creature's legs. Then she pulled, and pulled, and pulled, but without success, she might as well have been trying to move Mount Rushmore. "Okay, this isn't working, do you have any suggestions?" The creature was waving its arms around trying to grab hold enough of her to strike a good solid blow against, but she lazily slipped between its large ill-formed fingers every time they momentarily seized some part of her body.

/Well if we're going to operate on the assumption that this thing breathes, you could try sticking an arm down its throat and blocking its airway.\ Not having any better ideas, Susan slipped underneath the creatures body since it was easier to go forward than back and stretched upwards till she was more or less level with the creature's mouth again.

Then she shifted her body about, so that she could clearly see the creature's mouth and promptly thrust her right hand into it. She increased the size of her arm untill it was more or less as large as she could get it. The creature clutched at it and her with sudden (though completely useless) ferocity for a few moments before its orange pupils eyes closed and the thing slammed backwards against the ground.

Susan was tempted to let go of it at that point, but decided to play it safe. "I take it that this thing is now thinking even less than it used to be?" /Indeed it is Susan.\ She maintained her grip for another ten seconds before carefully unspooled herself. "The winner, and still remaining championess by technical suffocation, in the blue corner, SUSAN STORM!"

Of course just like there was always someone who was more beautiful than you, there was also always someone more mature than you. /You realize that if you make too much of a ruckus you're likely to draw more of these monsters, or some other different kind of monster?\ Susan hunched her shoulders in irritation. "Okay you're probably right about that, so I suppose I better get to work on getting to the top of that volcano..."

--

After taking a lot of very long steps, she finally made it to the edge of the volcano and looked into it. "Yipe! That's a long way down..." That said, the only thing she could see plenty dark rock but no bubbling lava, so it wasn't like there was anything to be afraid of. "Are Ben and Johnny any better?" /Not yet, but they aren't any worse either.\ Susan carefully extended a very long leg downwards and sure enough felt only solid rock. "Well then I guess I'd better keep looking for them.

--

Susan blinked a couple times as she continued down-tunnel descending further into darkness. "Great, just great. Here I am, alone in the dark tunnel all by myself, now all I need is the sound of someone breathing heavily over my shoulder promptly followed by me trying to run but twisting an ankle and we've got a ready-made horror movie. I don't suppose that somewhere in this uniform there's a pouch with a flashlight in it?"

Technically Susan wasn't truly alone, at least she could count on someone answering when she talked to the empty air around her. /Not at the moment, I'll have to remember to make a list of useful feild gear and come up with some convenient place to store it. For the moment why don't you just make your eyes bigger?\ Of course at times talking with Reed Richards could be an experience that would make you wish that you were alone.

"What good would that do?" She slowly counted to five with her fingers, and sure enough she hadn't even had a chance to extend her thumb before Reed broke into an explanation. /Well Susan have you ever watched a cat's eyes at night? Its irises expand to allow it to capture as much light as possible, thus allowing it to make the most out of whatever small amount of light is available. By the same token, during the day the pupils are largely retracted into slits, so that it isn't completely blinded by copious amounts of light.

There is a small amount of light down here, maybe if you increased the size of your eyes, you'd be able to make more sense of the situation around you.\ Since it was unlikely to make things worse, (and if it did she could just go back to normal) so Susan worked at it. In a few moments everything came into at least a twilight-like sort of focus that allowed her to determine where exactly the walls of the cave were through something other than touch alone.

Speaking of touch, Susan couldn't help but run a hand along her face and chuckled at the results. /Given that I'm picking up visual data from you that looks like something other than a black cat giving itself a bath during an eclipse, I'll assume my idea worked?\ Susan nodded as she began to increase her pace now feeling much more sure footed. "Yes.

Granted I don't exactly have a mirror on me, but I'm fairly sure that if I could see myself right now I'd be only: a less distinct pair of lips, an outfit that covered a considerably smaller portion of my body, and quite possibly a hairstyle that requires a tub of gel a day to achieve, and I'd more or less look like a character out of one my brother's favorite Japanese cartoons."

Amazingly enough, that pronouncement left Reed "speechless" so she had only her own thoughts to dwell on as she worked her way down the winding twisting corridor, not quite sure what she was picking up light from, but it was there all the same. Then she heard some kind of strange chattering and soon found herself running into a large group of little creatures.

They seemed to be about three feet tall with large heads that were almost square shaped. Their most striking feature was their eyes, which were extra large, and lidless. They were dressed in loincloths of a color that like everything else was of indeterminate color. "So do you guys talk?" The creatures let loose with a series of chirps showing off their many jagged teeth.

"I didn't get a word of that, it make sense to anybody piggybacking on my auditory organs?" /It wasn't like any language I've ever heard. That said, I didn't spend time studying languages. They're reasonably intelligent, so it was probably a language of some sort..." The creatures continued to gibber and gathered around Susan like a flock of ducklings around their mother. "Well you're psychic, that transcends simple things like language doesn't it? Can't you at least give me some kind of clue about what they want from me." An answer came quickly. /They want you to come with them.\

Then suddenly two of the creatures grabbed her legs and yanked them off of the ground, causing Susan to topple backwards. More of the creatures instantly grabbed her arms, and her neck. /And they don't seem to want to take 'no' for an answer.\ Susan turned and twisted in the monster's grasps but whenever she slipped out of one pair of grabbing arms, another one grabbed it and continued to drag her down then down the tunnel.

This was exactly the way she wanted to go, and getting carried there was easier than walking, but she had no intention of arriving there in captivity. /Okay Reed, I'm in a certain amount of trouble now as you can probably tell.\ Susan blushed even as she thought the words, since she wasn't sure whether or not the creatures could understand her words and she didn't want to tip them off if they could.

She'd apparently let her luck with the bank robbers give her a swelled head, it was only her first mission as a real superheroine and already she'd almost let herself gotten dragged around by a three-headed monster, squashed flat by a rock creature, and now she was getting toted about by a bunch of minuscule monstrosities.

Heck, even with the robbers, well she felt fairly confident that she would have come up with the fairly simple plan involved, but it had been still been nice to have her psychic 1-800-HERO number on call. /Well Susan I'm fairly certain I've said it before, in the field giving advice is all I'm good for. At the moment, you have to focus less on trying to evade from these creatures and more on disabling them.\

Susan chuckled, and saw a few of the creatures wince as the sound ricocheted around the room, bouncing off of first one wall and then another. /Reed, how exactly am I suppose to attack these things when I'm not much more than a blue-colored and blonde-haired rug at the moment?\ She had to amuse herself by looking this way and that for an unknown period of time while a mind greater than her own worked on her problem.

/Okay, I've concocted a plan. You've already had a certain amount of experience stretching your individual fingers, but not your individual toes yet, correct? Well start out by trying to get some use out of your legs and lower body. Then once you've got them focusing on the lower half of your body, increase the length of your fingers, and spread them out beyond the creatures' reach. After that, well, just do what comes naturally.\

If she'd been able to move her neck more easily Susan would have nodded. A bit of misdirection, and a bit of divide and conquer. Sure enough, when she started trying to work her legs free, the monsters kept choosing different grips and more of them focused on her lower body.

Thus when her legs suddenly went limp, and her fingers spread out in every conceivable direction a great many wide eyes spun about in surprise. All of her fingers were free so she quickly curled them into fists, and then remembering how ineffective giant hands were, rather than focus on making them bigger, she focus on increasing the amount of force they could strike with.

Her hands melded together into a pair of blue spheres, and then decided that for what she wanted a certain amount of size was needed. Once they were more or less the size of bowling balls she took a few moments winding up (during which the creatures were apparently too surprised to do anything) she let lose.

The size of her fists was appropriate considering that she knocked over at least five of the creatures like bowling pins. The other ones began to leap and jump about in a vain attempt to restrain her arms. A few of them even managed to grab hold, and while she was working to try and shake them off, she took advantage of the sudden freedom of her legs to deliver a few solid kicks which left more fallen opponents in their wake.

When one of the creatures landed on top of Susan's body she felt him press into her midsection like he (Susan assumed by default the things were male for lack of any sort of breasts) was landing on a trampoline. Out of pure instinct she turned herself on her side so that instead of tossing him into the air, when her body snapped back to normal it struck his back, causing him to topple to the floor momentarily.

As more of her body was freed up, Susan's attacks became more numerous, and before long she was once again a five foot six inch tall giant among numerous prostrate forms which now only came up to her knees instead of making it up to her hips the way they had while standing up.

"Thanks again, Reed, I really don't know what I'd do without you..." /Probably get dragged halfway across an island by a three headed flying monster, pounded into pulp by a rockbeast, and find yourself utterly helpless and delivered straight into the villains lair by his minions.\ It was said calmly and logically, but that didn't mean Susan had to like it.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, throw my thoughts right back at me. Do you have any idea how irritating that is? I mean you were bad enough, when you simply knew everything about everything anyone was talking about, but now you know everything about everything that anyone is thinking about." There was a long pause, and then Reed responded the same way he did to most social advice: he ignored it. That said he had a very good reason to ignore it.

/Ben and Johnny just woke up!\ Susan clapped her hands together in joy, but felt it leaving as quickly as it came. "Wait a minute, what are the odds that the two would naturally wake up at the same time? You can feel free to express in form of words rather than numbers."

He took her advice. /Not very good at all. But apparently they didn't wake up on their own. The chamber they're in at the moment is lit by some kind of glowing crystal so I can interpret what they're seeing fairly well. It turns out they were carried, or more likely dragged in Johnny's case into that room by more of the creatures that you ran into. They've got yellow skin if you're wondering.\

Susan didn't particularly care about the what color their skin was, but all the same she broke into a run hoping that she arrived before all the 'fun' was over. "Okay, so do we know anything about who is controlling them and if they're also the one who were giving the giant monsters their marching orders?" Even though she able to see the tunnels all looked alike, so Susan didn't have any particular idea how much closer she was getting to her two male companions.

/Well, that's interesting to say the least...\ Susan scoffed. "Reed, whatever you're hearing that I'm not, let me in on it okay?" Apparently whatever Reed was hearing, it was too important for him to peel his attention away from it, at least at first. /Okay then. Just like you predicted the large chamber that Johnny and Ben are in is currently also occupied by the one who controls the small creatures known as Moleoids and all the other monsters that we've encountered on this island.

He calls himself the Mole Man. He was apparently born with a disfigured face to start with, and after a lifetime of getting, the short shrift because of it he eventually went on an expedition to the North Pole just to get away from the rest of humanity. In the process he accidentally fell into a crevice which turned out to be part of a subterranean network of tunnels deep within the earth.

Because of wounds he suffered during the fall he became extremely sensitive to sunlight to the point of blindness, but learned how to get by without it, not to mention eventually designing a pair of glasses which helped him keep his sight while going above ground. After that as a result of previously mentioned ill-treatment by numerous people because of his appearance, he decided that he would have revenge on humanity. His weapon of choice at the moment is the various monsters which inhabit this island that he somehow managed to get to obey him.\

Susan looked upwards at the top of the tunnel, not that this provided her with a view that was worth writing home about. "Well when you're right you're right, and you Reed Richards were doubtlessly right when you told us that what we'd find here would be weirder than a bald madman with a list of demands that the leaders of the world would have to meet or else he would bring civilization as we know it to an abrupt screeching halt."

--

Susan walked into a large open corridor and found what looked like Ben and Johnny fighting a short man with brown hair in a green cloak who was wearing a strange looking visor, all three of them armed with staves.

Her two companions were not having the best of luck, since the small man was incredibly nimble. He dodged one blow from Johnny, jammed the butt end of his weapon in Ben's gut leaving him breathless before sticking his staff between her brother's legs, causing Johnny to stumble and trip. With both of his opponents now lying on the floor the man in green smiled.

"See, the Moleman stands triumphant! My incredibly keen senses make me all but unbeatable!" Susan placed her hands on her hips and smiled. "Oh really? Mind if I offer a second opinion?" The Mole Man spun around and glared at her. "So, another invader into my realm who needs to be dealt with!

Do you honestly think you can so much as lay a finger on me?" Susan raised her right hand and held it out towards the maniacal... well on second thought he wasn't quite short enough for maniacal midget to be an apt, but Susan was willing to be that she was about a full foot taller than him. "One finger? I bet I can get four of them and a thumb."

Then her arm shot outwards. To the Mole Man's credit he was fast, so fast that he doubtlessly would have avoided Susan's fist if he was simply trying to punch him. What he hadn't been expecting was for Susan's hand to suddenly uncurl and all of the fingers start to stretch outwards and then down to create an impromptu net.

At the last moment, as he saw the inevitable approaching, he swung away with his staff. Having accomplished her boast about getting a full hand on him, she decided it was time to get a little payback for what he'd done to Ben and Johnny. With a twist of her wrist, she whipped her arm around and slammed her arm and the captive inside it against one of the cave's walls. Then she retracted her arm, leaving a very concussed Moleman holding a broken staff. "Well upon close inspection, that was easy."

The Mole Man slowly got back on his feet, his face filled with anger. "You think that I am so easily undone, Giganto, come to my aid!" The same unreasonably large green monster that was responsible for destroying the nuclear power plants. Susan looked back at Ben and Johnny and thought very hard. /So who's ready to run?\

Both Johnny and Ben nodded. Without another word, Susan calmly once again wrapped her right hand around the still shaken Mole Man, dragging him along with her as she took off running back towards the tunnel through which she'd entered this particular chamber. Ben and Johnny followed her, and luckily all of them managed to make it into the smaller tunnel before the Mole Man's pet could grab hold of them.

Risking a quick glance backwards, she saw that the monster was reduced to pawing at them, like a cat hopelessly trying to grab hold of mice which were safe in their hole. "Blast you, come forth all my minions!" The tunnel shook and a few feet behind them some, thing that Susan didn't want to waste her time taking a good look at popped up.

She just kept running faster, spitting a few pithy words in the process. "Dam it, how did this guy get all these things to follow him in the first place?" "I... MMMMPHHHH!" The Mole Man started to give an explanation, but, it was cut off by Susan wrapping her left arm around his body in general, and mouth in particular As they continued running Johnny looked upwards and sigh. "Okay, Reed we currently have a veritable flood of monsters chasing us, now what?"

/Well if you can make it out of the tunnel, then you should be able to bring it down with one good punch, or at least Johnny could.\ And with those words everyone started running about twice as fast as they had been previously. Susan felt a very large smile fill her face when she caught sight of the literal light at the end of the tunnel.

As he crossed the threshold Johnny pressed a hand to his head. "Okay Big Brain, you tell me where to punch, I'll punch." Sure enough a few moments later swung his hand swung forward and slammed it into the side of the wall. In almost the blink of an eye the entire tunnel began to shake before their eyes.

"No! You can't separate me from my kingdom!" In a flash the Mole Man wiggled free from Susan's hands and was off racing into the tunnel, even as more and more of it began to collapse behind him, leaving the Fantastic Four watching in amazement until the entire tunnel had caved in.

--

As the ship's rockets got to work, and they became airborne, looks were exchanged around the cockpit. /While I'm perfectly well aware this isn't exactly a military organization, would anyone object too deeply to a debriefing since none of us have anything to do untill we get back home, or should I just keep my thoughts to myself?\

Ben wiped sweat from his head of short brown hair. "Might as well let us have it Reed. Knowing you, we won't stop pestering us about it until we've gone over it, so it might as well be while we've got the free time. Besides, a good debriefing goes a long way to helping prevent PTSD, and there ain't exactly reserves waiting to take our place if any of us need to be on the couch instead of out saving the world.

So do you want me to walk you through proper military procedure or are you gonna play it by ear?" Reed's container shook, but then the entire ship was shaking due to the force that was currently propelling it through the air. /I'll do this by ear, so would anyone like to start us off?\

Johnny stamped a metal foot on the floor as lightly as he could since he couldn't raise his arms at the moment. "I'll just come flat out and say it, none of us died, who isn't glad about that?" None of the other three members of the Fantastic Four particularly felt their continued survival was something worth acknowledging aloud, though Susan did take a moment to reflect on just how glad she was for the particular blessing her brother had mentioned.

"That not insignificant detail noted, it still feels like we didn't accomplish much. Yeah Johnny managed to make it a bit harder for the Mole Man or any of his monsters to get above ground on Monster Island, but he could still probably keep attacking places with Giganto if he wanted to."

It seemed like Susan's and Reed's emotions were on some kind of weird seesaw; whenever Susan was up Reed had some new pessimistic comment to make on the cold hard reality of life, and whenever she was down he had a comment to make about how sooner or later science was going to turn the world into a perfect utopia. /I wouldn't be too sure of that Susan. We've effectively identified both who is behind it and where their base of operations is, which means if nothing else we could be able to.

If my memory is correct, during World War Two the British devised a bomb which they used to take out German bridges by the most brute force tactic imaginable, the bomb was so powerful that it wherever it landed, it created a reasonably localized earthquake.

I'm not sure if there are any of them laying around in hangers, but suffice to say, there are probably things that can be done to collapse the tunnels that originate beneath Monster Island, and separated without the Mole Man calling the shots, his creations should return to being reasonably docile. So in other words, we did well, especially considering that you got separated halfway through.\

Ben chuckled slightly, though his face which suggested his wings especially didn't like being strapped into a chair designed for normal people during flight. "Well you can give yourself a telekentically pat on your non existent back for that Big Brain. You're the guy who was watching all the charts and keeping us in contact with one another."

Susan couldn't be sure (it was probably her mind playing tricks on her, in the sense of Reed Richards sending her visual data that she was more inclined to believe than what she was currently seeing) but it seemed like Reed's brain seemed to get just a little bit more pink. /If I've thought it at you once I've thought it at you a thousand times, you're the ones who are doing all the leg work as things currently stand.

I'm doing all I can with my telekinesis to let me properly effect the world around me, but I still a long way from satisfied with my skills as they currently stand./ "I think we all are, Reed, I think we all are." Susan's words of wisdom hung with them all throughout the flight back to the Baxter Building.

AN: If you have any problems with the conclusion of this chapter, go and reread FF#1, and you'll realize I really didn't have that much to work with. Though I suppose it being the opening issue and all we can forgive some foibles like having trouble finding a satisfactory ending.


	7. Chapter 7

Original Twist

Chapter seven, Confusion: In which Susan Storm breaks out of prison and Reed Richards does a little cut and paste.

Susan looked around her new home, and a single word occurred to her. "Immuration." She spoke the word aloud because in her given situation it didn't really matter whether she said it in a normal tone of voice, whispered it, shouted it, or just thought it. Susan promptly began trying to recall everything she could about the word, or at least what it meant.

Luckily it wasn't all that hard to remember the words meaning since she had plenty of time to think. As best she could recall, immuration was one of the many nasty ways that people had come up with for killing one another during the Middle Ages. It might in fact be considered the nastiest way they had come up with, if you measured 'nastiness' on a scale of how long it took for the punishment to kill the victim.

You took someone, some place, and then you built a wall around them, then another wall, then another wall, then another wall, put a roof over all those walls, floor beneath all those walls, and that was it. One person, four walls, about a year's worth of non-perishable food, a constant drip of water, a ray of sunlight, and a cot.

Immuration, you either ran out of food and starved, or went insane and found some way to kill yourself. She shivered slightly, as she also faintly recalled that along with burning and drowning immuring witches inside some holy place or other was another favorite way of dealing with them. So it was the kind of punishment people reserved for very bad girls, which if the United States government was to be believed she was, lovely.

"Okay Reed, tell it to me again, because getting woken up at four AM and told to surrender myself to the soldiers outside my home is not my idea of a good way to start the morning." Reed unsurprisingly remained calm as ever. /It's called protective custody Susan.\

A punch thrown in hopeless frustration led to Susan's arm bouncing off the wall like, well, like a rubbery ball hitting what had to be at least twelve inches of solid metal. "They can call it a vacation to the magical land of milk and honey for all I care, as long as it involves being put some place and told I can't leave, I call it being in prison.

But, taking a break from picking nits for a moment, why don't you tell me what exactly we did to deserve being in here, besides possibly saving countless lives from the Mole Man?" Susan's stomach rumbled slightly, reminding her that there hadn't been any time for breakfast between waking up and coming out with her hands up. Nor did she imagine that whatever food she was eventually going to end up getting served would be particularly good.

/Well apparently having 'seen' the security videos in question I must admit that if they were forged, it was incredibly well done. Not to mention the difficulty of making sure all the cameras showed the same event taking place from so many different angles.\ Susan was not in the mood to hear Reed sing the praises of whoever had engineered their predicament.

"I saw them as well, but quite frankly I think if I was going to suddenly become a supervillianess I'd have gone with something more dramatic than simply bouncing right through the glass window of a jewellery store one night and proceeding to swipe their entire stock using folds in my own body as pouches to store the goods. First of all, there's no motivation to it besides sheer kleptomania, considering that I could have easily bought every item in that store, or possibly just cut out the middleman and bought the store itself if I wanted to.

Secondly there's no class or finesse. I mean, enter through the ventilation system, use my extra long fingers to pull the plugs on the security cameras so as to not leave any evidence behind. Not that I spend my spare time plotting how to knock over jewellery stores of course. It's just that I've seen enough spy movies to be able to figure out how someone with my powers could be pretty good at the entire 'leave no trace behind' thing since I doubt Ethan Hunt was ever able to turn your average mouse hole into a perfect hiding place.

I mean whoever did that couldn't have made the fall girl in question more obvious without spray painting 'your property stolen by Susan Storm' along with my telephone number and address on every wall of the store. Plus, there's the little, small, fact that I've got an alibi about as bulletproof as my skin, what with your heat sensitive scanners combined with security cameras showing I was in my room all night."

It all added up to one huge headache, which prompted Susan to take another fruitless punch at the walls which currently surrounded her and whose only defining feature was just how amazingly bland they were. /I know Susan. None of the other crimes 'we' committed made much sense either. I don't have the power to lift my own body off the ground, let alone start picking up and tossing around actual cars. Johnny destroying an oil derrick, Ben interfering with the army test flight of some new night fighter, none of it makes any sense when viewed logically. The people in charge agree with me, it's just that they're worried that some regular citizens might see things differently and ended up hurt when we defended ourselves.\

Susan huffed in irritation, slowly running her hands along the twin curls in her blond hair. "Yeah, but while we're in here, we can't be out there proving who exactly set us up. And that seems like the real important superhero task of the hour." It was not Reed's voice, but Johnny's which suddenly raced through her mind. /That's what I've been telling him since this entire mess started, sis!

I mean come on, this is only straight out of every comic book ever. Am I the only one on this who's ever heard of the concept of 'evil twins' before? So maybe they're not going to make it easy for us by having goatees and long curled mustaches, but the point still remains.

I will bet doing all the laundry for a week against getting to say 'I told you so' if when we do track the fakes down they turn out to be: some kind of crazy robots, us from another dimension, or genetic experiments that were created based off samples of our DNA.\

Susan walked up to the "door" of her cell, which would make your average bank vault look like the kind of screen door people used to keep insects out, with rusty latches. /As charming as the idea of handing you a basket full of my 'delectates' and listening to the sound of your mental gears stripping themselves is Johnny, there's just one problem with taking that bet.

You talked about how "we" were going to track down the ones responsible and doing that while inside our cells is going to be rather difficult.\ She went back to pacing, knowing that she wouldn't have to wait long for her brother to respond. /Well yeah, but I thought you guys were smart enough to know that once we've got our plans all figured out we're going to bust out of here. I mean this is like the plot of a eighth to -- let's call it a sixth and be done with it -- of all the action movies ever made.

Good guy gets framed by bad guy out to spoil his good name so that bad guy is free to proceed with their malevolent scheme unmolested. Good guy gets sent to the same kind of prison that uses cardboard for bars and mute quadruple amputees for guards that his bad guys break out of so frequently. Good guy escapes, tracks down bad guy, foils previously mentioned malevolent scheme, clears own name, gets smooch from or makeout session with love interest who may have assisted in him in his journey to clear his name, and it's time to roll the credits.

I mean you get that the longer we stay in here, the more time the evil us has to blacken our good names with the general public, and since they apparently have our powers the cops or even the army is about as likely to catch them as a turtle is to catch a cheetah. So if I've been able to figure this stuff out then I'm sure you have as well Reed, right?\

Susan wished she and Johnny were in the same room, not only might he have had better luck at bashing a hole in one of the walls through which they could escape, but she could have wrapped an arm around him and thrown him against the walls. Not only would it have served him right for making her listen to that particular string of 'logic' but as an added escape it would have brought them one step closer to being free.

/I think Johnny raises a good point.\ Susan was coming to dread it whenever Reed said those words or some variation thereof. "So you had us surrender to the authorities, just to break out of the high security prison that they've put us in. You know I think what with all the wonderful toys we had access to at the Baxter Building, it might have been a smarter idea to just escape from there and cut out the middle dungeon."

The most irritating thing about Reed Richards was that whenever you finally thought you'd have a chance to rub something in his currently nonexistent face, he took it away from you by agreeing, at which point pressing the issue would have made Susan feel so childish that she'd have to check she wasn't wearing a diaper under her costume.

/In retrospect yes, unfortunately I was taken just as much by surprise as their early morning demands as the three of you were, so I simply did what I thought was best for the team at the time. The same way what I now think is best for the team is to escape from this place.

So towards that ends, lets all go over our current situations, mine is as you can guess not exactly promising since restricting my mobility is far from a difficult task.\ Ben's mental voice chimed in a few moments later. /I'm not so well off either Big Brain. They've got me loaded down with enough chains that you'd think I was audition for a part in A Christmas Carol.\

Johnny of course came next. /I'm currently trapped in what amounts to the moonbounce from hell, since whatever these walls are made out of, whenever I try to punch them all it does is sending me flying in the opposite direction.\ Susan twisted her neck around looking at every single wall of her cell. /Well I'm in some kind of giant white room whose walls don't have any convenient seams that I can slip through, which means that we might have to accept the idea that we're going to be here for a while.\

Sure enough, tying back to her earlier theory, whenever she felt down, Reed felt up. /I wouldn't be so sure of that, Susan what are you doing at the moment?\ She continued to calmly pace around the walls of her cell, hoping to notice some tiny crack that her avoided her attention during her first circuit of the room.

"Ifm walking around my cell feeling like a complete idiot because Ifm looking for something that Ifm ninety nine point nine repeating precent sure Ifll never find.h There was a sound remarkably similar to the buzzer that accompanied many a wrong answer given on some game show or other. /Actually I was hoping that youfd focus on the fact that you're breathing.

Unless our captors were unconcerned with the possibility of you suffocating, a prospect I am highly dubious of, there must be a way for oxygen to get in, and carbon dioxide to get out that room. If you can figure out how, then you can probably use it to escape.\ Susan continued to look all over the cell. "You say that, but this place still looks exactly the same in every conceivable direction to me, so how do I find this particular hidden door?" /Elementary science....\

Susan promptly smacked her head against the wall in preparation for the lecture to come. /For reasons that I'll forgo going into since time is something of the essence, hot gasses rise, and cool ones sink. The internal temperature of the average human body is on the whole just shy of a hundred degrees, so it is safe to conclude that the carbon dioxide you exhale is warmer than the oxygen you inhale.

Therefore, the most efficient way of letting one in and the other out of your cell would be through the ceiling, since carbon dioxide will naturally rise towards it, and oxygen passing by would naturally sink into it. Which means you should try carefully running your hands along the roof of your cell.\

Susan did just that, and for the first time was grateful that the group had been called upon to surrender so early in the morning because she had gone to sleep dressed in a normal civilian outfit made of unstable molecules. That outfit didn't contain gloves, and bare fingers were doubtlessly the best tool for sensing a possible weak spot in her cage.

She slowly aligned her elongated fingers, allowing them to drift back and forth along the ceiling like several fishing lines being dragged back and forth through the water in the hope that their shiny lures would entice nearby prey. Then she felt something that didn't feel exactly like the cold metal the rest of her cell was made of, and seized on it.

Whatever this material was, it crumpled like tin foil beneath her fingers revealing a vent about the size of her hand crisscrossed with countless little mesh wires. Susan gazed at the vent, to her it might as well have been the size of a wide open garage door. "Okay, Reed if you're not piggybacking far enough inside my brain to know what I'm seeing, we are officially in business, and I am officially out of here..."

She lengthened her legs until her head was brushing up against the grating, and a few moments later she had slipped through it. "You know, I've spent way too much time crawling around in ventilation shafts recently. At least if we need to create new identities then I won't have any trouble lining up employment as a janitor."

/The three of our cells are extremely close together, but before you go about making our escape obvious, we need a plan.\ Her brother had one. /How about we have Susan use her magic fingers to hotwire a tank this time, and we smash through any walls between us and sweet freedom?\ Three other people thought the exact same thing at the exact same time. /No.\

Ben went on to elaborate exactly why this was a bad idea. /Listen, making a huge showy target of ourselves is only going to get us blasted into a great many tiny itty-bitty pieces. Flying out of here is also a no go, even if the four of us could fit into a two-seater, we'd still show up on radar and they'd come out at us.

What we want is something simple and quick, a jeep, a humvee, the kind of thing that doesn't make it easy for them to tell where we are.\ Now, that was a plan that she could agree with. /Okay then, now I think I'll just get to work on the entire springing you guys thing.

Reed could you like paint a mental map for me, or at least let me see where you guys are and where I am?\ Not being familiar with the layout of the base, Reed was only capable of the second. Winding her way through the building's ventilation system was a bit tricky and she needed to double back a few time, but she made progress all the same. Eventually, she slipped her head out to take a look around the empty hallway. The rest of her body followed suit and she didn't need to look twice to figure out which one of them her brother was behind.

The thing looked like it would take a team of at least three men to open it, or one Ultra Woman. She wrapped her arms around it and pulled, and sure enough it slid open. A few moments later her brother bounced out and slammed into her full tilt, leading to the two of them laying on the floor in a blue puddle for a few moments. Then he stood back up dusting a few bits of his sister off of him.

"Hey sis, how was your time in the slammer? Did you have to get into a fight in the shower with another girl to prove your dominance? Susan slipped out from underneath her brother, glaring at him all the while. "No, there were five of them, and by the time we were done, it had turned into a hot soapy lesbian make-out session, with saxophone music in the background.

Now before you start complaining about how I broke your non-existent brain, go free Ben while I rescue Reed." Johnny muttered something about 'stir-crazy' just barely low enough to be sure Susan heard it and then promptly proceed to tear through a nearby door, while Susan concentrated on a door with a lock on it.

"The security in this place is just plain horrible, but then I suppose that's what happens when you give the contract to the lowest bidder.Finger goes into the lock, finger takes on shape of key, twist finger, lock pops open, toss lock over your shoulder and yank open the door.

"Well, this must have been a bit a little degrading for you." The contents of the room could best be described as follows: mop, bucket, cleaning supplies, container holding the mind of a man who could build a nuclear weapon in his spare time and consider it an amusing diversion from his more pressing and difficult projects.

It was a janitor's closet. /Well they were simply being efficient.\ Susan grabbed the jar holding Reed's brain off its shelf and held it close to her. It really was amazing how Reed just couldn't bring himself to feel like his dignity was offended just because the people around him were being efficient. "Okay Johnny I'm done, how about you?" Johnny walked out of the Ben's cell, pausing for a moment to finish ripping the door off its hinges with Ben following behind him.

"Okay now we just have to get out of here. Luckily, since they didn't blindfold us on the way in it should be pretty easy to find our way out. Ben I want you to hold onto Reed since I'm going to be taking point, as the saying goes." Ben calmly took Reed from her hands, though Johnny wasn't as pleased with his part of the plan. "Why exactly do you get to lead?"

She calmly pointed a hand right at his metal nose. "It's simple process of elimination. Ben doesn't react well to being shot, and if they hit you the things will probably bounce off and end up harming some relatively innocent person who is only doing their job." Johnny swatted away her elongated arm. "Bullets don't exactly stick to you either, sis."

Susan took a very deep breath and nodded. "I know that, but I've also been practicing, you know those machines which automatically pitch baseballs? Reed has made one that shoots me, and I typically burn through about a clip or two a day with it practicing how to mold my body based on where I want the bullet to go. If nothing else, I can make sure that nobody will get hurt when I get shot. Okay team, let's break, by which I mean out of here."

----

The elevator door opened and Susan came face to face with two men who were carrying what she'd guess were M-16s, but only because they were clearly some of assault riffle, and they were members of the US Army.

The two men pointed them at her, and Susan just glowered at them.. "Listen boys, I do hope you remember what happened to the bank robbers who tried to do the entire shooting Ultra Woman with AK-47s or whatever the hell they were using thing? It doesn't work.

So unless you've got some kind of special acid bullets in those guns, all you're going to do between the two of you is lodge five dozen or so rounds into the walls. Now bullets costs money, and after we finish clearing our names, I'll take the time to write the people in charge of this base a check for a lot of money. But right now, we need to be out there to prove our names.

Which means there are only two ways that this can end: you can shoot me, and the bullets bounce off, at which point I'll proceed to whallop the hell out of you for pissing me off, or you can just give up now and when anyone asks, say I choked you till it all went black for a while."

Susan held up her hands and flexed her fingers for effect. "I'm very good with these things, I can quite easily choke someone without leaving a mark. Oh, and if it helps make the choice any easier for you, in addition to superpowers, at the moment I also have PMS."

The soldiers dropped their guns. "Good call. By the way, could you point me the way toward the motor pool?" They pointed, she grabbed the guns and tossed them to Johnny who proceeded to break them into a great many small pieces. Then the four of them headed away from the two soldiers.

"Okay, that will officially be one of the greatest stories of things that my sister has ever done, and I know that I will never ever mention to anyone. You're not seriously, well you know, are you?" Susan shook her head forcefully. "No, but I felt it'd make a good bluff since I doubt they would ask me to prove it."

There was silence as they progressed which of course left Susan with far more time than she wanted to ponder that particular biological function. /Yeah I'm not having PMS, because I haven't had my period for three freaking months. Granted, since we're currently trying to escape from some high security military base, there are probably more appropriate times to consider the mysteries of my nether regions.\

-----

As it turned out escaping from a high-security military base was pretty simple. Steal a jeep, drive up to gate, have Johnny momentarily get out and bash large enough hole in gate for them to drive through, and then they were off. Nobody seemed all that interested in shooting at them.

Susan could come up with an explanation for that phenomenon without asking Reed though, the men behind those guns probably realized that it wasn't the brightest of ideas to piss off the two members of the group that bullets couldn't hurt, by shooting at the other half of the team.

Before long they'd made it back into New York City proper, ditched their escape vehicle and followed Reed's instructions to what he claimed was a ready-made hideout.

----

Susan looked around the small apartment. It had more or less everything you could want. "Okay, so we've got a place to stay that's below the radar, but what about money?" Sadly for Johnny he evidently didn't know Reed as well as Susan did. /The safe is behind the picture. Combination is nineteen to the right, twenty one to the left, five to the right. There's a quarter of a million dollars in it in non-sequential bills.\

Any possible quibbling over the subject of the combination was forgotten in the blink of eye much over Susan's relief. "Okay I'm just the walking talking robot here, but what exactly is two hundred and fifty thousand dollars doing in that safe?"

/Well it occurred to me as we were getting things set up that if for any reason the team might need to go into hiding it'd be nice to have a safe house set up, which is why this place exists. It's got everything we need from liquid assets to a month's supply of food.\

Ben carefully began to inspect their new base of operations. "And how exactly are you sure that no one is going to find us here?" /Well after the handymen were finished making the modifications I wanted, I had them shot.\ Saying you could have heard a pin drop would have been underselling just how quiet it was. /What? I thought it was funny.\ Awkward glances were exchanged.

/Well never mind then, I made sure to use about three different middlemen so that it'd be just about impossible to trace this place back to us. We should be able to hide out here for as long as we need.\ Finally freed from the funk that Reed's morose joke had driven them to, Johnny went right back to being his immature self. "That's great and all, but I don't think we busted out of that prison just so that we could sit around here. So how exactly do we get around to busting our doubles?"

Reed Richards was silent for one of the longest periods of time that Susan could ever remember him having spent thinking about a problem. /I hate to say this, but it's going to be Susan's job.\ Johnny promptly sat down at in the closest chair that she could find. "Man, how come sis gets to have all the fun?"

Ben took up position just to the left of Johnny, and then extended his wings so as to have the appropriate appendage strike Johnny upside the head. "How about because while we're all wanted criminals at the moment at least Susy doesn't look like a renegade from the World's Fair?"

For a moment Susan contemplated just how unfair it was that things did in fact seemed to always be up to her, especially consider that she was working with three male (assuming you wanted to assign a gender to Reed Richards) companions.

Life would have been much easier if she could have just been one of those superheroines who baked cookies, acted as a secretary, and got kidnapped frequently, it would probably require a lot less effort. But such was not to be. "Okay, so after I was instrumental in getting us to escape from Alcatraz meets Area 51, what exactly is Ultra Woman going to do to save the day this time?"

/Well there's a saying about how the criminal always returns to the scene of the crime, and we don't have much else to go on other than the crimes we already know our doubles have committed. In short, simply modify your face and spend some time walking around the area where your double struck last night. If she tries to rob another jewellery store, stop her.\

If nothing else, as always Reed knew how to make it sound easy. "Okay, then what? I drag the other me down to the nearest police station and try to convince them that I'm the real Susan Richards?" That sounded like a lovely prospect that wasn't at all filled with numerous ways of becoming needlessly complicated.

/Not exactly. After you deal with your double, get her safely out of the way, and then hang around. Sooner or later our own doubles will show up as well. At which point...\ Susan stood up and started shifting her facial features about. "I can guess how it's supposed to go from there. Okay then, I'm off to go save the world. You boys play nice and have dinner waiting for me when I'm done."

---

Sure enough, going out for a stroll along the reasonably wealthy side of town dressed in appropriate clothing with her hair worn without curls and her face slightly different than normal, no one recognized her as a superheroine on the lam from the proper authorities. For about an hour she just meandered around without achieving anything, or having any real idea of what she was trying to achieve, until she suddenly heard the sound of a not-so silent alarm going off.

She raced in he direction the sound was coming from as quickly as possible without attracting attention. When she reached he jewellery store in question it was just in time to see herself, or at least a woman whose face was a perfect match for what Susan's normally looked like climbing out through one of the store's broken windows dressed in a Fantastic Four costume.

Her body had several unnatural-looking bulges in it, and she jingled with every step she took, obviously loaded down with more ill-gotten gains. "Hold it." The woman glowered at Susan and she began to grow larger and larger her shadow completely covering Susan's body. "Fool, don't you realize who you're dealing with? No one can stop Ultra Woman!"

While the fake her monologued, Susan took a moment to ponder. Just what would she find when she was done dealing with this imposter? She really doubted it would be some kind of remote-controlled robot; she wasn't a genius like her boyfriend, but if somebody had been able to make a piece of 'art' that imitated life as well as this thing did, she doubted they would have been able to keep it a secret.

Not to mention they probably could have gotten far richer by marketing the thing than they could have by using it to commit crimes. Which left what exactly? Susan knew she was having a bad day when the theory that she was about to get into a fight with herself from an alternate reality seemed like a pretty logical explanation for her current situation.

"I don't care, give up now, put the jewellery back, and turn yourself over to the police or else!" An expertly malevolent cackle answered her. "Or else what? Why don't we see how confident you are after you've tasted the wrath of my elastic limbs!" Her right arm shot out, wrapped around Susan's middle lifted her up into the air, and slammed her down against the ground.

Susan could have escaped that grip if she'd wanted to, but the minor discomfort that came along with the impact was a small price to pay for the look of total befuddlement on her double's face as Susan landed with a rubbery "booing" instead the bone-jarring "thud" her assailant had doubtless been expecting.

Susan used that surprise to slip free and then feeling a few theatrics were in order, slowly crossed her hands in front of her face. She looked like no one in particular as her hands slid in front of her face, and as they slid away, two Susan Storms were trading glares at one another. "Funny thing about that, you see, I occasionally call myself Ultra Woman as well. Let's see which one of us deserves it more."

Susan expected the fake to either let loose with a series of punches from her elongated limbs, or to once again try and entangle her. What she did not expect was for the other woman to let loose with a growl of rage and jump toward Susan, her features changing mid-leap. They were not changing in the delicate subtle way Susan's could, not at all.

To put it simply, by the time the "woman" landed on Susan, she'd dropped all of the jewellery she'd stolen, and Ultra Woman was now engaged in battle with a very angry Siberian (at least in the sense that its coat was white instead of orange, Susan didn't consider herself that well-versed in taxonomy either) tiger.

She felt twenty razor-sharp claws dig into her body, not to mention countless sharp teeth bite down firmly on her neck, followed by a powerful tug. If Susan had been anyone else that tug would have probably resulted in her head being torn off, the same way the claws digging into her would have left her with numerous gaping puncture wounds in her skin.

All that actually happened to her was that her neck elongated slightly as the tiger pulled on it, and Susan smiled as she looked into the thing's orange eyes. "You know, I can think of a synonym for a synonym for what you've just made yourself which would feel very appropriate at the moment, but I'm too much the lady to say it. So in lieu of needless name-calling, here's what we who actually are in the superhero business call a sound thrashing, instead."

Susan's entire body stretched out faster than the tiger could react and in moments even if the thing still had a death-grip on her neck, Susan now had it in a combination of just about every other kind of hold imaginable. She teasingly flicked the beast's tail back and forth while it lashed futilely. "Huh, I don't why people seem to think having a tiger by the tail is such a bad thing."

Then she calmly placed a single finger on top of one of the thing's paws. "Eenie, menie, miney moe, grab a tiger by the toe." On second thought, doing this kind of thing was just a little sadistic, but on the other hand, whoever and whatever she was dealing with had dragged Susan's name through the mud, and she hadn't lost the love of her life, yet gone on to save the world so that she'd spend the rest of her days being treated like a wanted criminal.

Except that even as she was pushing down on the toe it began to change, in fact it quickly disappeared. Before Susan's very eyes a green-scaled serpent slithered out of her grip (which had plenty of openings in it since she'd been fighting several hundred pounds of feline a moment ago) and then just as promptly turned back into a perfect copy of Susan, leaving a very surprised superheroine with totally empty coils.

"Okay, you know what, I've had just about enough of this. No more of this fancy back- and-forth, there comes a time when a woman must..." She stretched out her hand and punched the other her in the gut mid-sentence, causing her to collapse flat on the ground. "Throw a good old fashioned sucker punch and see how well it works, and the answer is apparently surprisingly well in this particular case."

Since the two were still alone, either due to the late night or because anyone in their right mind who had caught sight of the two would have given them a large berth, Susan dragged her double into a nearby alley. "I still don't have a single clue who, or what you are, but there is one thing I know for certain, you won't be needing this..." She removed her double's outfit and was left starring slack-jawed at what was underneath, some kind of strange, ridged, greenish-purple armor.

Deciding that if she actually managed to pull off Reed's plan she'd get all the answers she could want, Susan quickly began to pull on the blue outfit which felt odd to the touch, like it wasn't made of unstable molecules, but something else instead.

A quick test proved that it still stretched along with her body just fine though. Then figuring that, given her powers it'd be a waste of time to try and restrain her double, so instead she just stuffed her unconscious body into a mostly empty garbage can which would at least keep her out of sight.

/Reed you might want to have Ben head over my way if he thinks it's safe for night flying, I've found some trash that you might want to have him collect.\ After that she ambled out into the middle of the street and started collecting up all the lovely bits of loot her double had dropped, just to help make the deception more convincing and prevent anyone else from stealing them of course.

Then she made her way over to a lamppost (feeling her body jingle and jangle with every step she took) and leaned against it. Not having a watch on her she wasn't sure how long she stayed there for, but eventually a nondescript car she didn't recognize drove up and her brother (or at least someone who was a very good likeness of him stuck his head out. "Lynrax, what are you doing here, instead of at your extraction point?"

Susan tried to place the speaker's accent, his voice didn't sound perfectly like her brother's but at the same time it didn't offer any hint towards what the speaker's true nationality was either. So she decided to just play along and do what everyone did when they got lost in New York, blame the city.

"I couldn't find my way to the extraction point amid all this chaos and confusion, so I stopped somewhere I knew you'd find me, Mandroid."The double of her brother opened up the car door and slid to the other side so that she could get in. Susan simply walked over rather than using her powers, her double hadn't quite been able match her powers, and she didn't want to give her new 'friends' any hints as to her true identity.

/Great, so now I'm the real me pretending to be the fake me to get information out of the fake them, so now all we need is for the fake me to wake back up in time for her to be ready to pretend she's the real me when Ben arrives and this thing will be so twisted up that we'll need to start handing out score cards to keep it straight.\

She relaxed her body and let the gems fall to the floor of the car, which was being driven by a double of Ben who took a moment to inspect the haul before commenting. "Nonetheless, it seems you did at least handle one part of your mission competently. Soon the entire city, if not the entire world will be out for the Fantastic Four's blood! Not to mention, at least she had the intelligence to know that we are not to use our true names where anyone might hear them, Mandroid..."

Her brother's double tried to shrink back against his seat. "Forgive me for my haste Dragonfly, but still another week's worth of operations of this nature and all should be ready to move ahead as planned." Susan leaned back against her seat, trying to finger her temple as unobtrusively as possible. /Reed, I think you really should get out of that safe house and have Ben and Johnny carry you as best they can to try and keep up with me because things are getting very complicated very quickly down here.\

/I can tell Susan.\ The two fakes otherwise remained silent as the car drove into a run- down part of town and they got out. Susan did as well before reaching a hand back into the car to curl around the jewels that her own fake had stolen. Both of the doubles looked back at her and there the stood for a few moments before bursting into laughter. "Why are you so obsessed with those pathetic Earth trinkets, Ultra Woman?"

Susan had never played a part in a camp B movie, but a true actress could believably ad-lib her way through any situation. She promptly closed her hand around a ruby that was about the size of her fist and pulled it out of the car so the others could see. "I think they're pretty."

She turned up her nose slightly as she spoke to give the hint that she was trying to talk philosophy to Neanderthals. The two doubles looked at each other and chuckled. "Females, it figures that you could travel for hundreds of light-years and still not find a properly sensible one." Susan quickly tossed the ruby back into the car.

"Pardon me for choosing to find myself attached to a momento of my glorious and well- deserved victory over the pathetic weaklings who inhabit this planet. But since you two are evidently so much more focused on the mission, why don't you lead the way inside so we can rendezvous with the fourth member of our group?h

Susan knew she was taking a risk there, if there wasn't a fourth member of the group, or if they weren't here to meet him, then she was going to be a lot of trouble. Luckily both of the doubles nodded and quickly made their way up towards a run-down old building that they moved into. The one passing for Ben stretched and his wings suddenly retracted into his back. "Ahh, much better! Such ungainly things to have to be burdened with for the sake of disguise! Commander, we have returned to base with our objectives accomplished."

A strange-looking creature sitting on a wheeled chair spun around to face the three of them. It had unearthly-looking green skin with extremely large eyes that Susan couldn't help but liken to a frog's. His chin was cleft three times over and his ears unnaturally long and slightly pointed. He was dressed in more of the same green-and-purple armor she'd seen her double wearing. "Good, good, the clever little remote control robot I've been using to simulate the Fantastic Four's leader has also been quite successful at wreaking havoc. You may return to your true forms."

The double of Ben and Johnny seemed to shimmer slightly and though she could not see their faces she was perfectly well able to see that the two had become creatures just like the one that sat before her who was now glaring at her. "Why haven't you... you fools, that's the real Ultra Woman!"

The game was up, but even as the two whatever-they-were turned around, Susan's extra- long arms easily grabbed them and slammed their heads together, knocking them both out cold. Then she slowly advanced on the seated creature. "Well, now that I've evened the odds a bit, why don't you tell me what this is all about?"

The creature smiled a strange inhuman leer at her. "I think not!" He picked up some kind of ray gun that had been hidden by his elbow and even as she lunged at him a strange white mist rolled out of the barrel. The stuff enveloped Susan and it suddenly felt like her entire body was being pricked by icicles. She found everything going hazy and somehow ended up with back on the floor unable to so much as twitch her fingers.

"Do you truly think we would have come to this planet unprepared to deal with the real Fantastic Four if the situation arose? See how easily you have been subdued by a something so simple as a blast of a super-cooled substance? I could shatter you into pieces with one blow, were it not for the fact that our scientists would doubtlessly find much joy and profit in dissecting a rare human such as yourself.h

Susan couldn't blink, her eyes were stuck wide open, leaving her with no choice but to watch what was going on before her. That was why if she'd been able to move her lips she would have grinned and told her captor to look behind him. Because a few moments later the wall he was standing in front of suddenly had a very large hole in it, more or less exactly the shape of Susan's younger brother. One quick jab from the Mandroid's metal fist later, and the last of the four invaders joined his comrades on the floor, equally unconscious.

"Looks like you missed your strike, sis! Luckily, I was on hand to pick up the spare." Susan would have made some comment about how her brother's attempts at humor far too lowbrow for her to find amusing, but words were still well beyond her capabilities. So now that we've got all four of them in one bag, what do we do with them, and how do we help Susy?" Ben entered the building through its normal door and tossed the still- unconscious double of Susan next to her fellow schemers.

/Well more or less the same things we'd do to warm up anyone in her situation. Though given her powers she should be more capable of accepting the kind of rapid temperature change that can play havoc with a normal human body.\ Ben had Reed more or less strapped to his back and Johnny began to slowly look around the room. "So we're supposed to do, what exactly?"

Reed heaved a very exasperated mental sigh. /Turn on the sink, find some carrying device, fill it with hot water, pour it on her.\ Luckily despite the run-down nature of their surroundings the water still worked and they were able to find cups. Plenty of hot water later, Susan was able to stand back up, and shake her hair dry. "Oh yeah, that's loads better than feeling like a piece of furniture."

She kicked at the fallen body that her brother had been responsible for leaving on the floor. "Okay, so now what do we do with them?" Ben set Reed down on a table and his container vibrated slightly. /Now we interrogate them. Luckily, since I'm psychic, it should be a fairly tame procedure. Still, since they're shape-shifters we need to be careful, like only having one up at any time. We'll start with the female since she's doubtlessly the closest to waking up on her own.\

----

Susan's double sang like the proverbial canary. They were aliens who called themselves Skrulls, and apparently they were planning to conquer Earth. But before the giant three- legged death machines (or however many legs their death machines possessed -- Susan had zoned in and out a few times due to boredom) they wanted to properly weaken Earth to prepare for their arrival, in the sense of getting the Fantastic Four out of the way.

So they had sent down a team that would use the Skrulls' natural shapeshifting abilities and some technology (like super high-tech explosives to destroy the supports on the oil rig her brother's double had attacked) to pass for the Fantastic Four, and then get the Earth's own population to do their dirty work.

Halfway through the interrogation Susan started to get the feeling that for a race that apparently had a galaxy-wide empire, they weren't the brightest stars in the sky. If she had a race of alien shapeshifters at her command she would have just told them to covertly replace all of the worlds important leaders then start firing off nukes like it was going out of style, then move in and mop up whatever was left.

Luckily, despite having an entire fleet of warships at their commands all staying just out of range of earth's best detection systems, the Skrull High Command lacked the intelligence of a college theater major.

----

"You won't get away with this! The Skrull who had sprayed down Susan was very much aware he was currently trapped in the coils of a woman he had scorned, but not about to let that stop him from reciting incredibly cliché dialogue. Reed was now placed on the table this particular Skrull had been seated at.

/I think I will. Your equipment and a proper display of your powers, which, will be more than enough to convince the proper authorities of our innocence, not to mention explain how the crimes they witnessed could have been committed by someone other than ourselves.\ The Skrull growled slightly, but did not attempt to change his shape in the slightest; despite being able to flick bits of their DNA in and out at will, they could still be held up by a little thing like a crushed windpipe.

"Even if you do prove your innocence it changes nothing! Skrull High Command is expecting a report from us inside a week's time; if they don't get it then they'll order a full invasion!" It would take more than the prospect of a full-scale invasion of earth to frighten Reed Richards. /Then they'll get it. You will tell me all the necessary code words and catch phrases I trust? I'll know if you're lying. after all.\

As Reed got to "I trust?" Susan gave a not-so-playful squeeze to help the Skrull commander make up his mind. "Of course I will! But that won't change the fact that High Command expects us to report that the Fantastic Four has been dealt with, or how best to go ahead with the invasion. Sooner or later we will conquer your planet. Nothing can change that!"

/Nothing you say? Interestingly enough, I myself must admit that this universe in which we live seems to be just about boundless when it comes to somethings I hadn't previously considered. Perhaps you should take a moment to reflect on that particular possibility.\ It really was amazing, the fact that Reed didn't need lips, teeth, or a jaw to smile, he just tilted himself slightly drawing attention to the curved ridges that separated the left and right hemispheres of his brain.

-----

Johnny casually shined the metal, and then stuck it to one of the Baxter Building many refrigerators with a magnet, though he had to flick the magnet back and forth a few times when it accidentally stuck to his fingers during his first attempt at the act. Then he did the same thing with another, took a few steps back and smiled.

"There we go, I think they belong together. The medal I got from United Sates government from protecting it from an alien invasion, and the one that got fired down from outer space to thank us for sacrificing ourselves by remaining in deep cover on this Pandora's Box-like planet that would eat their entire planet alive if they invaded.

Susan sat at the table a look of utter shock on her face. "I don't believe it." Johnny turned around smiling broadly all the while. "What? That after Reed cleared our names he spent the rest of the week editing together clips of some of my favorite monster and sci-fi movies to create a report for Skrull High Command on how Earth has hidden defences far more formidable then four superheroes?

Well that and using his powers to mind-wipe our doubles so that they'll spend the rest of their lives as bovines on some farm in New Jersey." Susan shook her head. "No, that you could actually use a term like 'Pandora's Box' correctly." Johnny crossed his arms as he seated himself at the table.

"Hey I read stuff besides comic books you know."Ben just sat at the table looking at the small bowl which held the saviour of humanity. "Well all I'm gonna say is that it's nice to be on Uncle Sam's good side again. Finally Reed spoke up. /Well, I was just doing what was necessary.\

Susan suddenly stood up and sighed. "Well as much fun as it is to sit around here congratulating ourselves, there's a certain amount of woman's work that needs to be taken care of. The laundry isn't going to do itself." She was about halfway out of the room before Reed interrupted her.

/Actually, believe it or not, it is. Not exactly the most world-shaking of inventions, but the patents will probably help gather more money for the group.\ Susan slapped both her hands against her face. "Oh, okay then in that case I'm going to just go to my room and grab a nap." As she left the room her head continued to shake back and forth. /And by 'grab a quick nap' I mean, well I'm not going to think about that while I'm only one room away from the reason I'm doing it.\

---

Once she had reached her room, she got down and lay down firmly on the bed.

/Okay then, now makes for an excellent time to assess my love life and life itself. Let's see last time I checked some girly magazines, in the sense of magazines for girls rather than the kind of magazines my brother tries unsuccessfully to hide under his bed, how good a life you're living is defined by five categories: money, work, family, friends and love.

To start with when it comes to money I couldn't be doing any better, since I'm rich. Really freaking rich, like I can sneeze on hundred dollar bills, roll them up, and flick snot-covered currency at people who irritate me.

As for work, well I'm a superheroine. It's not exactly the easiest job in the world, but I'd be lying if I said it also wasn't rewarding. Also it comes with a whole bunch of nice perks, like people practically saluting me whenever they see me. The hours are nice too, I mean over the last two months I seriously worked, what? Maybe forty-eight hours to seventy-three hours?

So yeah, not the worst field to be in, so long as you don't mind the possibility of death by getting dropped into a giant vat of acid, or some other remarkably dramatic way. Still, career-wise I'm better off than I was four months ago so let's move onto the next category. How is my family?

Mom is still dead, and that's not going to change any time soon. Dad is still missing, and that's not going to change any time soon. Because if he showed up he'd have to admit to how badly he handled Mom's death. That, and turn over about a decade's worth of birthday presents to me and Johnny.... Still, if he's alive right now and not drawing on a cave wall with sticks, then he probably knows about us, and he's proud of his little boy and girl.

Which of course quite neatly brings me around to the subject of my little brother, well even with superpowers, he's not that big an annoyance so all in all my family is decent enough, what little of it there is.

Next up, then, there's friends. Okay, I don't want to think about that yet, which just leaves love. On second thought, that's the problem in a nutshell. My good friend Ben is, unless my feminine intuition is completely malfunctioning, giving me subtle signals that he wants to move from just plain friend to official "boyfriend" and my current one doesn't seem to mind.

Okay that's a little unfair, what do I want Reed to do? He doesn't eat, he can barely move about, and he's always been completely logical, there's no way he's going to ask me out for a meal that he won't gain anything from. The way he is, we can't do anything together, and that just plain sucks. Granted at least I sort of come out ahead when I compare myself to females from other comic books.

If I got over myself and my 'silly' notions of true love I could get a date with Ben any time I wanted without needing to throw myself a high building and waiting for him to catch me. I also wouldn't have some kind of weird screwed up S&M relationship with him based around me committing crimes and he interrupting me in the middle of them to try and catch me and turn me over to the police.

If I want to be with Ben then it'd be easy to do. Walk in, wrap my arms around him and Bing, Bang, Boom, Wham Bam, Thank You Ma'am. Except that I don't want to, evidently because I'm an idiot, a romantic idiot who actually believes all the crazy talk that my brother has spoon-fed me about how if I wait long enough then Reed will come back.

Till that happens, I'm just gonna have to take care of myself one way or another. The last three months of my life certainty have been glorious. Three more like them, and I'll probably be crazy enough to try and take over the world when all is said and done.\


	8. Chapter 8

Original Twist

Chapter Eight: Performances, in which Susan Storm goes to a show and Reed Richards brings down the curtain.

"You know what's great about this? The four of us got in and we only had to pay for three seats!" A pair of "clangs" rang out simultaneously out as Johnny was slapped by both Susan and Ben. "You know what, with me not sitting between you there's no way you should be able to do that."

While Johnny was right in theory, as Reed Richards could have vouched, theories were treacherous things when applied to the real world. In this case, Ben had slapped him from the left, while Susan had struck it to him from the other side after extending her arm across the length of three seats.

/You didn't have to stand up for me like that.\ Susan looked down at the floor, and then shook her head. "You could have come Reed, I mean you are paying for us to go." Luckily because of the preshow chatter going on around them no one paid much attention to her talking to thin air, though of course sitting next to Johnny and Ben nothing short of a full on dramatic exhibition her powers was likely to earn so much as an ounce of attention.

/Well Susan you are within mental range of me at the moment, so in a sense I am there.\ Susan's eyes drifted over towards the seat next to her which was empty. Johnny said they had only paid for three seats, but in fact they had paid for five. There was a simple reason for that, the last thing Susan wanted was someone sitting next to her thought that just because Susan could fit her entire body inside your average soda they could have the armrest.

Likewise, Johnny had his own, vacant seat to the right of him, which was pretty ironic in retrospect, since it left Ben with his wings folded behind his back seated between the two of them. If he hadn't suggested it himself Susan never would have agreed to that particular arrangement.

Her eyes drifted in the opposite direction to check what time it was (Ben was wearing a watch -- for all his brilliance Reed had yet to make a timepiece that wouldn't slip off of her wrist when she used her powers) and saw that they still had some time to kill among them.

"I can't believe how much money we're paying just to see some magic tricks." Two seats over Johnny coughed loudly. "Hey, they don't call this guy the Miracle Man for nothing, he's like, the best. Besides sis, it's no one's fault but our own that you're here." Susan extended her neck past Ben so that she could glare at Johnny without any innocents getting caught in the crossfire.

"Exactly how is it my fault that I'm here, when you're the one who insisted we all had to come?" Johnny pressed a metal finger to her face firmly enough that it momentarily squashed her nose flat. "Because quite frankly if I had to spend another night watching my sister moping around, then one of us would have ended up getting thrown you a window before it was over.

Think about it, a night on the town, getting all gussied up, you used to live for this kind of thing." Susan retracted her neck and went back to brooding. The entire getting 'gussied up' thing hadn't appealed to her lately given that she didn't have anyone she was trying to impress by doing it. She wasn't even close to being narcissistic enough to think that spending a couple hours looking at her own reflection in a couple different dresses was a fun way to spend her time.

/Dam it, for the ten billionth time to anybody who is listening, at least anybody but him in particular, I want my boyfriend back!\ Without further ado she went right on with cursing whatever deities she could remember the names of as the house lights began to dim. The so called Miracle Man came on stage to the exultations of the crowd and got to work trying to amaze them.

Susan had to admit that he was a consummate showman and knew his business. Slowly her scepticism over the subject of "magic" melted away as she got lost in the moment watching him appear to effortlessly rise into the air, and preform other impossible actions that to his credit she couldn't instantly figure out how he'd accomplished.

/I can't either. Of course I don't have the first clue about exactly what kind of equipment he's got hidden underneath or around the stage. In fact J think I could spend a couple of enjoyable hours trying to figure you exactly how he does it all.\ After hearing that he was leaving even Reed Richards momentarily befuddled Susan moved her respect for the Miracle Man up another notch.

She sat back and grudgingly felt herself starting to enjoy the show, but all good things must come to an end and tis performance was no different. Eventually the stage magician began to take his final bows before the crowd, at least what should have been his final bows. "Thank you, thank you ladies and gentlemen. In return for your kind applause, I would offer you an encore, at least if I might have the help of a two members of the audience."

Susan had a premonition, and a moment later it was proven correct when she found herself cast in a bright spotlight. "Susan and Jonathan Storm of the Fantastic Four, also known as Ultra Woman and the Mandroid respectively. If I might have Miss Storm's company up on the stage?" In the blink of an eye Susan's bad mood returned as firmly as ever. /Oh yes I'm Miss Storm, thanks a lot for reminding me that by all rights I really should have my M-R-S by now.\

Knowing that if she acted like a grumpy putty girl she'd only be giving her brother a couple clips worth of ammunition to use against her, Susan decided to play along. She stretched up onto the stage from her seat, and gave the audience a quick sincere seeming smile. The Miracle Man spread his arms wide, and suddenly a handful of large hoops were resting on his hands. "Thank you, now then Ultra Woman would you be so kind as to stick one of your limbs through all of these rings?"

He tossed them unceremoniously away, and yet they landed in a perfect stack. Susan walked over, picked up all of the hoops and allowed them to hang motionlessly from her right arm. At which point she uttered a sardonic "Ta-freaking-dah" to the amusement of the other members of the audience.

The Miracle Man snickered himself and waved his hands again. The hoops suddenly slipped free from Susan and rose up into the air in a hodge-podge arrangement. "Excellent, excellent, well then why don't we try something a little more difficult? To pick one challenge at random, can you get one part of your body through each of the rings now?" Susan snorted in contempt, exhaling almost hard enough to displace one of her curls. "With ease."

True to her words, there was no particular skill involved in wrapping her arms around a pair of rings, her legs around another and her neck through the fifth. "Tadah!" She said it with genuine emphasis this time, after all, she doubted there was anyone else in the theater who would have been able to pull off that particular trick.

"Superbly done, would you mind pulling yourself back together and rejoining me on the stage?" She tried to, but all of a suddenly she found herself stuck in her unusual position, unable to use her powers at all. "It would seem that you're caught a somewhat precarious position Ms. Storm, perhaps I can give you a hand..."

He began to move his hands around, and the rings followed his motions. Before long she'd gone from simply being held in place by the rings, to floating above the stage with her body contorted into one unnatural shape after another for the amusement of all those (especially her brother) present. Then, after about a full minute of treatment that would have been humiliating if Susan had let it get to her, the Miracle Man clapped his hands and the hoops dropped to the stage.

Susan wasted no time in returning her appearance to normal and standing back up. "Ultra Woman, ladies and gentlemen!" His voice was dripping with sarcasm but Susan just took one noncommitial bow, and without straightening up from it proceeded to flow back into her seat. "Now then, I wonder would her brother mind accepting my challenge to a completely fair contest of strength?"

A pair of well dressed stage hands wheeled out two identical sections of what must have once been a very, very large tree. The things looked like they were so tall that your average human being would only just barely be able to get his arms around them, let alone lift them. "You may inspect them to your hearts content, or even select some impartial members of the audience to look them over for you to make sure they are completely the same."

It was a good thing that they were seated in the front row or else Johnny might have ended up seriously hurting someone in his rush to get on stage. "Nah, I trust my own eyes and hands to be enough to let me know if one of these things is petrified and the other is made of plastic."

He careful worked over the two logs for about a minute before coming to the conclusion that if there was any kind of noticeable difference between them he couldn't tell. "Okay, so now what?" The Miracle Man took several steps toward the backstage so that everyone would be able to see what happened quite clearly. "Select whichever of the two you wish and break it as swiftly as you can."

Johnny did just that, as these things were no twigs, it actually took him a couple of good punches to snap the thing in half. "There we go, I'd like to see you do better." The Miracle Man smirked, walked over to the remaining log and calmly proceeded to run the index finger of his right hand through it like a knife through hot butter.

While Johnny's punches had resulted in the thing snapping ungainly, when the Miracle Man was done with his log it toppled in half in the cleanest cut imaginable. "Don't feel bad young man, it's all in the wrist. And thus I conclude my performance."

---

"What a jerk." Susan glared at her brother who shrugged helplessly. "What? He was a jerk for dangling you over the stage like that, however he did it." Susan's glare remained firmly fixed on him. "Please, you're just mad that he made you look like a fool as well. I mean nobody was clapping louder than you when he did that."

Johnny made a considerable effort to look extremely insulted. "Well of course I was! I mean if I wasn't then people would think that you were really upset about what he was doing to you, and you weren't, were you?" The two glared at each other in mutual silence, neither one of them about to give an inch to the other.

----

/We have a problem.\ Susan's right hand shot across the room, wrapped around a bookmark and pulled it back over to her. She slipped it between the pages of the science fiction novel she'd been work on, laid it down on her pillow and slid off the bed. "Okay Reed, what's wrong this time?"

/Well, if my current calculations are correct, all you need to do is look out your window, you should be able to see it.\ She did just that, feeling as if there was a double take coming an moment now. Sure enough, she felt her jaw go slack, and her rubber lower lip hit the ground. It didn't look that big from her window, but she was a couple dozen stories up.

Adjusting for the how high up she was, the thing was, simply put, huge. It looked like the kind of giant granite monster that which should have been relegated to movies. Susan blinked a few times, and stretched her eyes so as to get a better view, sure enough just like she'd somehow known, the Miracle Man was ridding on the monster's shoulder.

She looked up at the ceiling, her standard tactic for addressing Reed. "Okay, that's just out and out crazy. And there's but one way that I can 'logically' react to it, I'm going to open up my window and jump out it. Then, what happens next, well I have absolutely no idea. But what the hell he's only got a giant statue on his side, the worst he can do is have it step on me."

/Good luck Susan.\ She opened up the window and jumped out, then stretched out her body so that she looked vaguely like a flying squirrel with a noticeable membrane of flesh stretched out between her arms and legs which allowed her to easily glide downwards towards the monster and its controller.

Of course once she had negotiated about halfway down to the monster she sucked her "wings" back into her arms and proceeded to finish the rest of her journey accelerating downwards with all the haste gravity could bring to her journey. She hit the monster's head and proceeded to splatter all over it, in an apt display of why you never wanted to go sky diving without a least three or four parachutes strapped to your person.

It took her about five seconds to recover from that, and then she proceeded to wind her elongated midsection down from the creature's head and over to the shoulder on which the Miracle Man was sitting, with a black duffle bag slung over his shoulder. "Would I be correct in guessing that this isn't some kind of charity stunt?"

The Miracle Man was still dressed in his stage costume, which to his favor, was much more dignified than anything you'd expect to see a supervillian wearing. "Oh it's a matter of charity my dear, charity that one as mighty as I let you and every other being on the face of the planet live to see another day. Do you like my little collection?"

He unzipped the bag, and showed Susan a very large collection of sparkling jewels. "Do you like them, after all they say diamonds are a girl's best friend." Susan didn't bother to pull her legs over, the sheer absurdity of their situation made her current appearance seem perfectly natural. "Well as you could probably remember, my name is Ultra Woman rather than Ultra Girl, so diamonds are just barely in my top five list of favorite things.

So maybe you can tell me why it is that the villains I run into seem to keep going after jewels? More importantly if you're supposedly so smart why did you decide to take your giant stone buddy for a walk right past our headquarters?" The Miracle Man smiled. "Are you careful to avoid walking past an anthill on your way home? Why should I have anything more to fear from you then you do from the strongest of ants?" Susan carefully ran her left arm along her right as if she was rolling up her sleeve. "You raise an interesting point, but know what? But my fist here would like to bring up some evidence that is contrary to your originally stated premise."

The Miracle Man's smirk grew even more detestable. "Well let me put a question to you Ms. Storm. Are you going to try and pummel me, or save your friend?" He pointed upwards and Susan could just make out Ben circling above them. "What are you talking about?" The Miracle Man made a gesture as if his right hand was a gun pointed up a Ben. "Well perhaps you'll better comprehend the enormity of my power once I clip his wings."

He made an indistinct sound, and suddenly Ben's wings vanished. "So now then, are you going to try and punish me, or rescue your friend?" "I wouldn't be much of a superheroine if I didn't at least try and do both..." Her right hand shoot out at the Miracle Man, but she didn't stick around long enough to find out whether or not it connected.

All that she cared about was what was happening to the left half of her body, because that part of her was busy stretching out towards Ben. Luckily she was pretty high up to start with, so she was easily able to shoot out her arm upwards and snag Ben before he'd built up too much momentum.

After having managed to catch him, she wrapped her right arm (which had very much not connected with anything) around the nearest wall she could find before doing the same with her left hand even though Ben was wrapped up in it. Once she'd done that, she took a very deep breath.

"Ben, just between the two of us, this isn't going to end well is it?" "Really Susy? Because after I went into a tail spin a couple dozen stories up I thought things couldn't get better." Susan suddenly knew that her situation was about to get worse, and twisted her neck around. Surely enough the giant stone monster casually smashed aside a wide section of the building on the other side of street to wrap its huge hands around Susan's body.

Then it promptly took a few steps away, pulling Susan's body along with it. "Hate to introduce such tension into your life Ultra Woman, but some people simple don't realize when giving up is in their best interests." Susan knew exactly what the Miracle Man intended to do, when his monster let go of her, she'd slammed into Baxter Building's wall, and more importantly Ben would get slammed into it, and unlike her he wouldn't be able to recover from the impact with ease.

But if she slipped out of the thing's grip, then her body would go limp, causing Ben to slam against that wall very hard all he same. So in short, she was starring down the barrel of a catch twenty two. "Ben, you'd be doing me a real big favor if you didn't scream during the next few seconds."

Then she did it. Susan slipped free of the monster's clutches, and sure enough her body shot forward, but even as it did, she stretched her arms away from the Baxter Building. She slammed into the wall trying to curl her entire body except for her arms into a ball. At which point she and Ben were left still unhurt, but also falling towards the ground at a rate that Ben probably didn't like thinking about.

Susan's back opened upwards turning her body into a living parachute that slowed their mutual decent to a degree that allowed them both to land softly on the ground. It was only as she was starting to sort herself out again after they'd touched down that Susan noticed Ben was once again in possession of wings.

She took this particular fact in and needed about five seconds before she came to a simple conclusion. "No, just no." She wasn't sure who or what she was talking to but Ben apparently took it as a signal about how he shouldn't go and get himself into another situation where Susan had to rescue him from otherwise certain death.

Without another thought she began to curl up the monster's leg working her way towards the Miracle Man yet again. "So, no the world rejected you because of some hideous deformity or because you were 'different', no advance man for some evil empire, you're just the world's biggest jerk, do I have that right?"

The Miracle Man's black mustache really did an excellent job of accentuating his smirk. "And in turn, you my dear are nothing more than the world's biggest rubber band, and I think it is about time you were properly snapped." The next thing Susan knew she had been struck by some invisible force and thrown high enough into the sky that she could see the Baxter Building's roof.

----

Jonathan Spencer Storm made a solemn vow to himself that as soon as he got "The Girl From Ipanema" out of his head he would make Reed Richards listen to it on continuous repeat for a few hours and see how he liked it!

It would be tricky of course, especially because at the moment Reed Richards didn't have ears, but he wasn't about to get a little thing like that stop him from getting revenge. The most annoying part about being a superhero he had discovered was the elevator rides.

Susan could stretch and bounce, Ben could fly, but when here was trouble brewing right outside the Baxter Building's very door, he had to ride the elevator down to it. He made a mental note to ask Reed to design some kind of bungie-jumping like system which would allow him to reach the ground floor faster, and then cracked his metal knuckles as he stepped out from the doors which couldn't possibly have opened fast enough for his liking.

Then he walked outside and took one look at the giant stone golem that was stomping its way down the street. "Okay then, clearly I'm going to have to take this sucker down one punch at a time." He broke into a run and just as the thing planet a foot down creating a rather noticeable foot print in the street.

Johnny let loose with the best punch he had, and was surprised at just how well it worked. A huge crack was left in the thing, and it travelled up the monster until it reached the monster's head, and the entire thing broke apart into one huge pile of minuscule pieces. "Wow, that worked so much worse in my head."

The Miracle Man began to fall towards the street, though he didn't so much "fall" as gently drift downward like a leaf on the wind. "Mr. Storm, so eager for a rematch?" Johnny just shrugged. "Well I can't honestly say that the best part of my job is punching smug idiots in the face, because really, its the money.

But punching smug idiots in the face is still pretty high on the list and let the record stand. Nobody but me gets to abuse my sister like that." The Miracle Man was completely and utterly unconcerned. "You'd be much more frightening Mandriod if you talked less and acted more, but then when I'm done with you, talk is all you'll be able to do!"

He pointed to the ground, and the next thing Johnny knew it might as well have gone from solid concrete to, well liquid concrete that he sank into until only his head was above ground. "Oh I am seriously going to pound your face in once I get out of this stuff!" The Miracle Man turned away and began to walk towards a nearby car. "I'm sure you are....." He snapped his fingers and the car's driver side door shot open. Then he got in and tossed the suitcase full of jewels into the passenger's seat before driving off.

----

Susan wasn't sure how high she was, other than 'really, really, really, high up' but luckily this was a self curing problem since she was also starting to fall at a very fast rate. "I wonder how long it'll take before I hit terminal velocity?" Luckily, being elastic left her free to ponder questions like that, since she didn't have to worry about what would happen when she hi the ground.

She knew she'd get splattered across the ground, street pizza minus the peperoni, then a few deep breath's she'd be back to normal. /The Miracle Man is getting away by car.\ Susan blinked in amazement. "By car? Really, well what do you want me to do about it? I'm currently waiting to come back down and using my powers to slow myself down enough that I don't black out when I hit the ground."

/Well if you could find a way to track him down to wherever he's going, it'd give us a chance to pull or heads together and capture him.\ Susan sighed in irritation as she first pressed her tongue first to the top of her mouth, and then the base of it. "Just for reference Reed, how are we suppose to capture a man whose superpowers seems to be, he can make anything he wants to happen take place?"

Reed's answer was completely, and utterly in character. /We outthink him. Sadly, I need some time to get the team together, and the only way I'm going to get that time is if you can make sure we don't loose track of him.\ Susan chewed her lip for a moment. "Okay fine, it's not like he'll have an easy time killing me, so how exactly am I suppose to keep track of him for you?"

This answer unlike his previous one did actually take her by surprise. "You know, all Joan of Arc had to do for the voices in her head was get burned at the stake." Then she shifted her body to a slightly more streamlined form that would allow to her control where she was falling towards, and got to work. With Reed guiding her, and by carefully adjusting her eyes, it was easy to catch sight of the Miracle Man's car, figure out which way he was headed.

After that it was just a matter of making sure she took a nose dive on the right street and slid over to the right spot. It was getting late, so the Miracle Man either failed to properly catch sight of the strange blue blob before him, or just didn't care about it. He drove right over Susan and she wrapped her rubbery body around his back tire and held on.

Thus began what she was sure would be the greatest indignity she'd ever be exposed to as a superheroine. That said, the fact that she was getting 'run over' just about every other second kept her from focusing on it too profoundly.

----

"You told her to do what? Reed that's my sister we're talking about, Susan, doesn't that mean anything to you?" Johnny had managed to get free, it hadn't been fun, but it had been doable. It had involved him slamming his head against the concrete encasing him again and again until he'd created enough leeway for him to work his way out.

He was now standing there, glaring with all the fury he could muster at Reed Richards. Reed for his part was there to be glared at because he wanted to do some 'on the sight' reconnaisance, and apparently wasn't willing to just find things out through Ben and Johnny's eyes.

So he'd gotten Ben to fly up to his lab and take him down, he was currently in a clear orb nestled in Ben's hand, and as usual, he was completely inscrutable. /Johnny I'm perfectly aware of the bond you and Susan share as siblings.\

Johnny began to take very slow steps towards Ben, and proceeded to tap the right index finger of his metal hand on Reed's encasement with extreme prejudice. "That's it? That's it? Reed what did you think you were doing sending my sister to play straw woman for some superpowered maniac while you come up with a brilliant plan to save the day?

I just can not honestly believe that you'd be that cold-blooded, and don't waste my time by telling me that at the moment you don't even have a circulatory system let alone blood!" Reed's brain drifted a few inches through the liquid to press against the side of the jar that Johnny had struck. /Listen, I'd explain all this to you, but Susan isn't in anywhere near as much danger as you think she is. Having a full knowledge of the her powers, and the Miracle Man's, I can safely say that she is in no danger of suffering any sort of permanent harm./

Johnny wasn't buying it however. "Full knowledge of his powers? All right explain them to me then, how did he do all that stuff with the rings and Susan in the theater, let alone out here?" Ben who had there silently slowly took a step back putting more distance between the bickering teamates.

/Johnny it would take too long to explain it to you. All that matters is that we need to get in one of your cars and for whoever is driving to follow my instructions. I'll try to explain as best I can on the way there, but quite frankly it'll be much easier to show you once we get there.\ "Where exactly is 'there' this time around Big Brain?" Reed drifted to the other side of his container. /The same place as always Ben, the end of a sad pathetic man.\

---

The Miracle Man brought his car to a stop in the middle of the junkyard he'd set up in advance to serve as his base. He picked up the duffle bag full of jewellery, and a wide smile on his face. "And people claim that no one ever got it just right on their first try! A few million dollars in jewellery, a quartet of irritating superheroes properly cowed, and come the morning an entire city that will be terrified of earning my ire.

At this rate, I won't even have to bother to pulling off any other robberies, I'll simply make requests and they will be met. Yesterday I conquered Broadway, tomorrow, the rest of the world!" His well trained guard dog Peter came running up barking his head off, not at him, but at his left front tire. The Miracle Man dropped his duffle back and glared at the tire in question.

"So..." He walked back over to the tire got down on his knees and saw something very blue covering a tire that should have been black. "Hello in there Ms. Richards, you win my regards for your persistence, though it will do you no good. On the other hand I do believe you might be of considerable help to me..."

-----

/Susan...\ Johnny currently had his foot planted on the pedal so firmly that it might end up crushing he pedal and sticking out through his car chasse. "It's a little late to start worrying about her now!" Reed's small container shook slightly. /It's not that Johnny it's just... it's just... never mind let's keep going, make a left at the next turn.\

His directions given, Reed was left to brood in silence, and for the firs time he truly understood just how it felt to have someone intruding inside his own mind. Sadly there was nothing he could do to turn out the strange monotone running through his mind.

/Reed help me, Reed help me, Reed help me, Reed help me, Reed help me, Reed help me, Reed help me, Reed help me, Reed help me, Reed help me, Reed help me, Reed help me....\ It was funny and sad at the same time that even in his current state Reed Richards could feel fear.

---

The car came to a stop, and Johnny came running out towards his sister who was standing out in the middle of a junkyard. "Sis, sis!" Susan's looking away from him, but strangely enough she didn't turn at the sound of his voice. "Reed help me, Reed help me..." Johnny tried to spin his sister around and look at her, but as he grabbed hold of her, she melted in his hands.

She went from just standing there, to being nothing but a puddle on the ground looking up at him with vacant eyes. "Reed help me, Reed help me" Despite her new appearance she preceded to mindlessly utter the same three words over and over again. "Susan what the hell happened to you?"

"I did." He spun around and found himself face to face with the Miracle Man. Before he could grab the malicious magician and shake him till he gave Johnny a straight answer, he kneed him in the gut. And when he did, it was somehow a meeting of flesh on flesh. Johnny fell backwards, his lungs having been emptied by the blow.

---

Ben watched in amazement as the Miracle Man floored Johnny with one good strike and then advanced on them. "I think it's time to bring your pathetic little attempts to resist me to an end." He snapped his fingers, and then all of a sudden he stood before them thirty feet tall. "And crush you beneath my iron heel!"

Ben held the small glass sphere before him and somehow managed not to tremble. "Reed, huge guy sanding before us, looking like he's about to turn us into a smear on the ground. So if you've got some master plan, now would be a good time to us it." The sphere seemed to tremble slightly. /Hello Miracle Man.\ The giant glared down at his newest minuscule opponent. "So, this is all the Fantastic Four amount to? One winged freak, a cyan puddle, an overzealous child and a single organ? Hah! You don't nearly live up to your reputation."

Reed's voice was the very definition of stoicism. /Well that's appropriate considering that you don't either. When I was making use of Ben, Johnny, and Susan's minds you had me fooled, for the most part. But now that I can see you with my own 'eyes', well what is the famous theatrical saying? Grand overture, unimpressive production?\

The Miracle Man raised his right leg casting the entire Fantastic Four in the shadow of his boot. "Demean me one more time and it will be the last thing you do!" Ben's neck began to twist as if he was trying to figure out which way he should start flying. /Big Brain, your current plan is leaving a lot to be desired when it comes to the results.\ Reed was as unconcerned with Ben's words as he was the Miracle Man's actions. /You harmed Susan Storm's mind and body, allow me to instruct you in just what a foolish action that was.

You see I'm not just telepathic, I'm also telekenetic, its just that my telekinesis has a much shorter range, but it's long enough at the moment..." A good sized rock suddenly floated up off the ground and flew through the air, it seemed to pass through air to the left of the leg the Miracle Man still had planted on the ground.

It seemed to, but then the Miracle Man was suddenly no longer a giant but a normal man who was laying on the ground and letting loose with one high pitched wail of pain after another. Ben looked at the suddenly much diminished villain and then down to the literal mind behind his defeat. "What the heck did you do to him?"

The sphere shook again slightly as if Reed was shrugging. "I used my powers to pick up a rock, and then hurled it at him. If my math is correct, based on the size, weight of the rock, and the speed at which I was able to propel it, the impact was roughly equivalent to taking a fast ball from your average major league pitcher in the crotch, and he clearly wasn't wearing a cup.

I'll admit it was the very definition of 'hitting below the belt' but he'll recover just fine before too long..\ Ben actively winced at that, men were not suppose to talk that serenely about the prospect of inflicting massive trama to another man's most sensitive area, it spoke of a lack of professional curtesy if nothing else. "Wait a moment, he was over there, and he was huge, and now he's small again and all because Reed flicked a tiny rock at his boys? I've heard of an Achilles's heel, but isn't that taking the concept a bit far?"

Reed "leapt" (say better he levitated) from Ben's hands. /The Miracle Man was never huge. He was never anything in fact. The only thing he was, is what he still is, an extremely accomplished hypnotist who has considerably more in the way of skill at his craft than morals.\ Johnny slowly rose back to his feet and scratched his chin trying to wrap his head around what was going on. "So you're saying that all of that, was just him playing around with what we were seeing?"

The levitating sphere settled slowly to the ground and began to roll towards the Miracle Man, if the occupant of said sphere hadn't just defeated a man who was had seemed to almost be a living god it would have been quite humorous. /Exactly. For example, a few moments ago he was actually standing to the left of the giant version of himself he was making you believe you were seeing. He was always was some place different than where we thought he was, thus any attack aimed directly at him wouldn't phase him in the slightest.

But once I was close enough to use my own abilities to sense where his mind was, it was easy to defeat him with a single well-placed strike. Which brings us to our current situation...\ The sphere stopped rolling just outside the reach of the prone man. /Unless I miss my calculations its time for you to release Ultra Woman from the hypnotic trance you placed her in, unless you'd like to go another round with an opponent who lacks all five of the senses you are so adept at manipulating?\

The Miracle Man rolled ono to his back and held up his hands in defeat and wheezed out a response. "I'll do it! Just bring her over, I can't stand up..." Johnny kicked a small cloud of dirt at the fallen supervillian. "Serves you right." Then he and Ben began to drag over Susan's still completely limp form. Eventually they tossed her before the Miracle Man who took a deep breath (one could literally see the pain in his eyes) and snapped his fingers. "You are yourself again..."

All at once Susan's eyes which had been slightly lidded opened fully, then she blinked a few times and a human form quickly arose from the puddle which grew thinner and thinner until it had turned into the feet of the once more fully Susan Storm. "Huh? What happened, the last thing I remember I though I had the upper hand, and now..." /It's all right Susan, the Miracle Man just put you under a little more severe form of hypnotism then he had the others, but I think it's a safe bet that he won't be bothering us or anyone else again.\

Susan looked down at the hypnotist's crumpled form and nodded in approval before taking a moment to look over the rest of the team. "Okay I get why I look human again, but what happened to Johnny's metal coating?" Her brother just smiled and walked over towards one of the many broken-down wrecks in the junkyard. "Ehh it's probably just some hypnotism thing to make me think I'm not the Mandroid any more. Watch me knock this sucker's Blue Book value into the negatives."

He punched the car's door with all his might, and the sound that resulted was very much that of flesh striking metal. Johnny yanked his hand back and waved it about in irritation. "OUCH! That guy is even better than I gave him credit for, that really hurt!" The small sphere once again started to rise into the air. /Actually Johnny I think the reason you're in pain at the moment is because you're an ordinary human being who just tried to demolish a car with his bare fists.\

Johnny nursed on his self-inflicted wounds for a moment before responding. "Wait, what? I thought you said all the Miracle Man could do was hypnotize people. So what happened to my powers?" The Miracle Man wheezed an explanation from the ground. "I couldn't make you do anything you weren't already capable off...."

Johnny looked at his hand. "Huh, I'm still not getting it..." Reed floated closer. /I think what the Miracle Man is trying to say is that you all along had the ability to transform between being Johnny Storm and the Mandroid, you just never bothered to realize it, the same way we already knew that Susan could turn into a shapeless puddle any time she wanted to.\ Johnny thought for a moment. "Oh, cool!"

----

Susan looked at her reflection in her room's full-length mirror. It was nice to be able to see herself in it again, spending time as a puddle had been no fun at all. Which meant it was a good thing that she could count always count on Reed. Just like it was a very good thing that they had had Reed or else the Skrulls might have ended up launching a full-scale invasion of the Earth. Or if it hadn't been for Reed tracking him down the Mole Man might have been able to start World War Three, but still, it had never been quite so obvious as tonight.

She'd made cracks about how she was the one who had to do all the work, but it was Reed's brilliance which really saved the day. /Which means that I've just got even more reason to be in love with him, and isn't that just freaking magical?\ Susan wrapped her arms around her own body, and then shook her head. It didn't feel right, she could feel how her arms belonged to her, how they pressed against her body all the way around. That wasn't what she wanted, right then there was nothing Susan desired more than to be held by the man that she loved.

Looking straight ahead Susan couldn't help but notice her body starting to distort. Her belly grew larger and larger, giving her the appearance of a comically pregnant woman. She stood there unmoving, as if instead of looking at a mirror, she was watching something on television that had nothing at all to do with her. Slowly however her belly began to grow protrusions and pull away from her.

It landed on the ground, about five feet in front of her and very slowly those protrusions became recognizable as legs. At the same time a head and arms began to emerge. The, thing growing from Susan rose up, blocking of her view of the mirror, and though the blue extension of herself before her would never pass as a human, it was doubtlessly humanoid. Susan gulped half in surprise, half in terror and shut her eyes.

It'd been months since she'd had problems controlling her powers and they'd never manifested themselves like this! She held her eyelids closed and concentrated with every ounce of will power she had on just looking normal. When she dared venture a peak she was treated to the sight of a perfectly normal Susan Storm looking back at her in the mirror.

She pressed a hand to her forehead and sighed, still no sweat, but what did that mean in the grand scheme of things? She knew perfectly well what had just happened, and could take a pretty good guess at why her body had felt some kind of pressing need to transform her into a dual-backed monstrosity.

The real problem with her problem was that there was precious little that she could do to fix it. Susan slowly shook her head and felt a grim determination flow through her. Her body wanted to spend time with Reed Richards? Fine, she'd go spend time with Reed Richards!

----

The door to Reed's lab slid open only a moment after she knocked against it a single time. /Something the matter Susan?\ Reed was laying on a desk next to a computer in a simple clear container. Words were quickly accumulating upon the computer screen and by looking down she could see the keyboard being manipulated, as if by a pair of invisible hands.

"Somewhat, I just wanted to see how you're doing." The keys continued to go up and down, apparently of their own volution. /I'm fine Susan why do you ask?\ Without a word both of Susan's arms stretched out wrapped around Reed's container and pulled it over to her body neatly nestling it between her breasts.

Susan took a moment to reflect on how pointless it was to try and arouse Reed Richards in such a transparent manner, but then promptly ejected all feelings of guilt and remorse form her mind. The thing she was holding in her arms right now was the man she loved and it didn't matter how perverse the comfort that came with holding him tight, it was comfort all the same.

"Well I'm not so fine, actually, so I want to talk with you." She relaxed her body slightly so that even though Reed was still held tightly in her criss-crossed arms he was no longer being held against any sensitive portion of her anatomy. /Susan though I do have many doctorates, none of them are in psychiatry...\

Seeling somewhat like a girl who was sneaking out of the kitchen with the cookie jar culched tightly in her hands, Susan began to walk out of Reed's lab carrying him with her. "I'm not that bad off Reed. The Miracle Man momentarily turned me into a puddle that was nothing I haven't made myself do before, and I'll doubtlessly do again in the future. I just want to talk, unless you're too busy being a superhero in addition to super-genius to spend an hour or two in pleasant conversation with one of your teamates."

/Well Susan I was working on...\ Perfectly aware she was channelling her brother to a remarkable degree, Susan cut him off before he could get any further. "Trick question! You're coming with me whether or not you want to, because even if we're both missing skeletons, I've still got appendages and you don't!"

The sheer childishness of the act put a smile on Susan's face, and Reed accepted his situation with good grace. /All right, where are we going to talk, and what are we going to talk about?\ Susan headed for the nearest elevator shaking her head sadly. "We're going to talk on the roof, and as for what we're going to talk about, well I don't know and I don't really care.

We're just going to talk like we used to, me frittering on about this, that, and the other thing, you chiming in to tell me relevant information that I will never find a use for but probably remember for the rest of my life all the same. You know, as a way of reminding us both a the end of the day that we're still Susan Storm and Reed Richards rather than Ultra Woman and Big Brain."

With her request couched in such terms Reed evidently couldn't bring himself to argue, and so the two of them took an elevator up to the top of the Baxter Building. Susan walked out onto the roof, sat down and looked up and then said the first thing that came to her mind.

"The stars seem to be missing something tonight." /What?\ Susan went back to looking up to the sky, it took her almost a minute to come up with an answer that made any kind of sense. "It's like there's no mystery left to them, like they're not really stars any more because all the space between them has been filled in.

I mean you know the age old question 'is there intelligent life out there' well circa one month ago we found out the answer. Okay maybe 'intelligent' is being just a bit generous, but still you get what I'm going for, right?" To her amazement, he did. /Solutions to problems, and answers to mysteries are double-edged things, because once you have them everything that made the mystery interesting in the first place is gone.\

Susan blushed a bit, and nodded, surprised that Reed was still able to successfully get to the heart of the matter so easily. "Yeah and I guess it's sort of screwing with my mind a little. I mean, once you accept the shape-shifting green aliens, it seems a bit abrupt that suddenly the guy who seemed to be able to do anything was only faking it every step of the way. Hard to tell whether the smart money is on being sceptical or open-minded when you're a superheroine."

/Why do you care?\ Susan tapped a finger against Reed's container glaring at the human brain within. "Why shouldn't I care?" Despite her minor 'intrusion' upon his personal space Reed's mental voice remained utterly calm. /Because you never did before. Susan worrying about what's 'right and wrong' in the scientific sense of what's taken place and what hasn't that always been more or less soley my domain up until now. Why do you have a sudden interest in the subject?\

Susan looked down at her hands and sighed. "I don't know. Because I need something to do or else I'll go crazy, but being a superheroine, even with publicity appearances, and training doesn't take all that much time. At least not as much time as took to figure out how to scrape together enough money to send my younger brother to college.

Not that he's likely to ever bother getting that degree now that he has superpowers. I'd say I want the three years of tuition money back except that now that as a member of the Fantastic Four I've got all the money I need... I guess, I guess its possible for a woman even with elastic arms to try and reach too far..." /Huh?\

It was one of the few times that she could ever remember leaving Reed Richards totally befuddled, no polite requests for her to restate her point just plain old-fashioned incomprehension. Susan wiped a tear from her eye and managed a half-hearted smile. "Sorry, let me make this clear.

Living in here with: Johnny, who I got sick of talking to during the first decade of my life, Ben, whose a nice guy, but well he's just such a nice guy that I have trouble seeing him as anything beyond that, and you, who are usually too busy working to talk to me, it's enough to drive a girl crazy.

I mean I can only sleep at most ten hours a day, so that leaves me with another fourteen hours to fill. Reed, I think I've run out of easy questions." /Easy questions?\ He still didn't get what she was working at, but that was fine, she hadn't expected him to. "I mean, raising money for Johnny to go to college, that wasn't easy to do, but I knew it was the thing I had to do one way or another.

But now, listen I'm trying not sound I just arrived in a time-travelling phone booth from the sixties, but the domesticity thing, I was comfortable with it. That's what I miss most about our current situation, not the fact that I can't walk down the street without half-a- dozen people asking me for an autograph, it's that I can't find anything really better to do than walk down that street and sign those autographs.

I've run out of easy things to keep myself busy with like worrying about money, and that's why I'm probably wasting my time and energy pondering the mysteries of the universe. Reed, do you think, that you can find the time for you and me to spend time out here, or somewhere else, and just talk to each other to past the time? I know you've got a lot more important things to deal with than I do, but still..." /I wouldn't mind. You're a good conversationalist Susan.\

She blushed again and rapidly shook her head. "Why would you call me that when we've already touched on the fact that I'm only going to end up driving myself crazy if I try to think too hard about the stuff you worry about on a daily basis?" Susan felt an invisible hand pat her on the back. /Because Susan when I'm working, I already know what I'm doing, its like a puzzle, you always start with every single piece you need.

Put this that and the other thing together. Up here with you I'm thinking new thoughts, realizing things I hadn't previously, learning. Not mention you make me feel.... human.\ Now there was something she'd never expected to hear him say. "How exactly do I make you feel human?"

A soft mental chuckle. /There are various glands in the human body that produce chemicals which the mind interprets and for the most part that's emotion, for the most part at least. But still, I have desires. Susan, do you honestly think I want to be like this? Do you think I enjoy it?\

So, it'd finally happened, they'd hit the point where even the patience of Reed Richards' patience started to fray. "No, to be quite honest I'd hate it. I mean, all the things you can't do any more, I don't know how you manage to find the willpower to face another day." The glass container she was holding onto seemed to grow a little hotter.

/The world needs my genius and the Fantastic Four in general. But that said, I can't help but that think to certain people, that because I lack a face, there's a temptation to view me as something other than human like some kind of organic machine that exists just to spit out answers, and I don't think my naturally rather introverted personality has helped in that particular case. So, it's nice to have you Susan, someone I can count on to see me as another someone.\

Susan shook her head, and sighed. "Wow. I think you just hit the nail on the head. I mean, you and me, we're both crazy, and we'd have to be completely nuts to deny it." She paused for a moment hopping that the humor inherent in the situation would draw some kind of reaction from him, but he remained silent, so Susan decided to spell it out.

'Listen I'm crazy because I got pushed into being an adult too soon so I'll probably never be happy unless I'm being a mother to someone. You're just, well you, and there's nothing else to it. Even before we got superpowers we're already two hot steaming cups of crazy, I just get served in a much nicer mug.

So here we are up on the roof of a building countless stories up, two cups of crazy in a pot of insanity, heavy on the nuts of course. I've got an idea Reed, you me and going to a movie some time. We'll buy two seats and you can sit in one of them in a backpack." /Maybe.\ Susan just sighed. Maybe wasn't yes, maybe wasn't no, and that was a step up from the situation she'd been in yesterday.

End Chapter

AN: If you have any comments on how in retrospect this chapter makes no sense, believe me I am with you 100%, take a look at the Original FF#3 and you'll realize I didn't exactly have a lot of logical material to work with.


	9. Chapter 9

Original Twist Chapter Nine, Wooing: In which Susan Storm's life gets unplesantly complicated.

The small white stone floated through the air, hovered for a few moments and then settled down neatly onto a particular cell of a large grid. /There.\ Susan nodded and got to work imputing the nature of Reed's move into a machine he'd made. "So what is this game called again?" /Go.\

Susan saw the machine's response pop up and she picked up a black stone. "I know it's my turn but it'd be nice if you had the patience to answer my question first." Reed's brain drifted back and forth in its liquid filled cylinder. /The game's name is Go.\ Susan placed the black stone in the spot the computer wanted. "Ah. Well, in that case, what's on second? So, when did you officially decide that the esteemed board game of Western geniuses wasn't good enough for you?"

Susan frankly didn't trust herself to put up a competent game of Go Fish against Reed Richards, which was why she was acting as a go between the inventor and his machine. /May eleventh, 1997.\ Susan sat there for a moment, not have expected such a definitive answer. "So you just woke up and decided that you'd go see exactly what games of mental skill people were playing one hemisphere over?"

The sound that ran through Susan's mind was the closest Reed could currently come to a chuckle. /Not really. It was the day that it turned out that humanity had managed to produce a computer powerful enough to beat the world champion at chess. So I decided that I'd spend my free time playing a game where innate human intelligence had yet to be over taken by the brute strength of processing power.

Determining the best move in Go relies on pattern recognition, something that comes naturally to us but computer aren't very good at. In fact, I think I actually end up spending more time working on machines to play against than perfecting my own game.\ A telekentically manipulated white stone dropped onto the board, and Susan quickly go to work letting the machine know just what move its opponent had made. "Ahh, no wonder you enjoy the game. How else are you going to find an opponent who can pose a challenge to you if you don't build them from the ground up?

Reed's shifted back and forth for a moment before bobbing up and down. /Like I said Susan, Go is an incredibly complex game. The sheer number of moves imaginable, well let me put it to you like this; chess is played on an eight by eight grid, while this game is played on one that is nineteen by nineteen spaces wide, which means, well you can figure it out can't you?\

Susan nodded and sighed. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Incredibly complex game, takes a lot of practice to get good at. You know what's sad? I've got nothing better to do than play this stu... stupidly complicated game with you. I mean seriously, just listening to you explain how the scoring system works was enough to make me get a migraine."

She crossed her legs , then for no particular reason lengthened them till they could overlap one another a second time. "Yeah, it must be that time of the month again if I'm wishing a supervillian would show up just to add some excitement to my life." Susan uncrossed her legs and placed a hand over her mouth. "Reed, do me a favor, did I just say that aloud, or think it?" /Say it.\

Susan banged her head on the table promptly leaving the delicate position that Reed and his machine had been constructing in shambles, (granted the positions were still stored on the machine, but it would take some time to set straight) muttering a quick curse. "Damn it, having you around is killing my ability to have a inner monologue. That's barely the kind of thing you should even think to yourself, let alone say out loud!"

Unfortunately, as brilliant as he was, Reed could sometimes miss the simple things in life, sort of like how someone with incredible long distance vision might miss a rock that was right under their feet and trip over it. /Why do you say that Susan?\ She held up her right hand, all of the digits spread wide. "Because it means I'm going to get just what I wished for in about five seconds. T minus four... T minus three... T minus two... T minus one... T minus zero..."

Nothing happened she stood up and began impatiently tapping her foot on the floor. "Oh come on! Any freaking moment now... wait a moment, how could I be so foolish? It's not going to happen while I'm waiting for it, it's going to wait till I relax, watch." Susan sat back down and after glancing at the monitor began to reassemble the board to how it had been beforehand.

After working at the task for about a minute, the lab was filled with the sound of a blaring sirens and Susan promptly slammed her head on the table again undoing all her work. "Ladies, gentlemen, and technically genderless organs of the jury, I rest my case!" Sadly rather than being able to rest, she stood up and rushed for the door out of the lab that Reed opened up for her.

She got a feeling (possibly mental suggestion) of which way she was supposed to turn, and sure enough she soon found herself faced to face with a man (at least she'd assume he was male based on the lack of any kind of obvious breasts on the costume in question) dressed in a red and blue outfit with a very prominent arachnid design on its chest. "So you're Spider-Man?"

Since it wasn't like Susan had anything else to do, she'd made something of a habit of keeping read up on all the superheroes operating in New York City, which was already turning out to be harder than it sounded, since apparently the Fantastic Four were quickly turning out to be something in the nature of trend-setters.

Spider-Man was more or less exactly what you'd image your average superhero to be like, wore a mask, didn't care to make it clear how he got his powers, and frequently left run of the mill purse snatchers and muggers wrapped up in giant webs till the police put them in handcuffs. Clung to walls, stronger than your normal human, also far more agile, and of course able to shoot incredibly sticky webs from his hands.

Reed had theorized (he occasionally "read over her shoulder" when she was doing superhero research) that the last was a feat of engineering rather than a result of his powers, mainly because spider's tended to spray webbing from a much less wholesome orifice than the tips of their legs. "Mind if I ask what exactly you're doing here?"

Spider-Man shrugged, and somehow his mask managed to give the appearance that he was smiling underneath it. How exactly it did that was the kind of mystery that Susan had every intention of leaving to Reed. "Well I was just dropping in, it was nice of you folks to leave a window open by the way." Susan knew exactly why Reed left that particular window open, and it wasn't just so that Ben could easily exit and enter the building.

"You seem to be under a slight misconception about how things work around here, so let me clear things up for you since as a fellow superhero there are a few simple rules you should be aware of. Large open window into otherwise heavily guarded building? TRAP!"

As she said the words a pair of walls made of some space-age material that she had no doubts even Spider-Man would have trouble breaking through began to slam shut in front of him. His inability to break out of them easily was probably why Spider-Man didn't even bother. Instead, he simply thrust out his hands and grabbed hold of the two sides of the container before they could meet each other. "Nice try I give you an A for effort, but when it comes to results you might as well have a big old F on that uniform!"

Susan wasn't the type to get carried away but she had to admit that there was only so much she was going to take. "Look, I was kind of busy playing board games when you showed up, so why don't you just leave now, after all the open window is right there." "Really, 'playing board games' is that what you crazy kids are calling it these days?"

Susan took a moment to contemplate the possibility that just maybe Spider-Man also had a superpower to annoy people, because she doubted anyone could be just that irritating naturally. "Sis, can I hit him, please, just once?" Susan looked over at her brother who had just entered the room and smiled. "Okay, you know what, sure go ahead, you two boys play with each other, quite frankly I can't help but think that you deserve each other.

Me? I'm going to stand over here and twiddle my thumbs while I have a conversation with all the mature people in the room." Meanwhile, sure enough, Johnny and Spider-Man began to circle each other. "By the way, in reference to the fact that we're in more or less the same profession, I won't hit you too hard, enough stars, or at least not A-listers."

Spider-Man of course shot his own response right back. "Whatever you say titanium teeth, feel free to try!" Sure enough, the two charged at each other, and Spider-Man managed to dodge Johnny's punch, and proceed to hurl her brother over his shoulder. "Proportional strength of a spider, remember?"

Her brother got back on his feet growling all the while. "You know, a guy could really learn to hate you." Susan buried her face in her hands, at the irony of that particular statement, but spread her fingers wide enough that she could see through them. If it looked like either of the two were gaining too much of an edge over the other than she'd probably need to step in to prevent them for doing what their respective nemeses had yet to achieve.

She was greeted with the sight of her brother reaching down, and grabbing hold of a section of the floor and ripping it upwards, causing several more sections of the floor to buckle. Of course if you ignored the fiscal cost of the maneuver, it was effective. Spider-Man fell on his back, and as Johnny straightened out his arms sending another rippling wave of force through the material, making it bounce up and down he was hurled through the air.

But with almost mocking ease he acrobatically flipped through the air and landed on a wall, smiling down at Johnny. "You know, haven't you guys ever heard of a little thing called hospitality? Maybe I should give you a little web-foot and see how you like it?" He assumed a very odd hand gesture that almost seemed to be the inverse of flipping someone off (pressing the middle finger against the palm of the hand ) and strands of grey webbing shot out and encased her brother's feet.

He tugged at the stuff, but only managed to get his entire body stuck in an awkward bent-over pose. It was at this point that Susan decided as amusing as the events unfolding in front of her were, if she let them proceed at their current tempo it wouldn't be long before these two found a way to bring down the entire Baxter Building around their heads, and she had spent too much of Reed's money to let that happen.

"Congratulation, you've managed to make my brother look like a fool. In the annals of superheroic feats, that's the equivalent of one of those trophies they give out for good sportsmanship." Spider-Man looked down at her from the wall, that damn mask somehow managing to make it indisputably clear that he was smiling underneath it, she really would have to ask Reed how exactly that was possible later.

"My my, temper, temper, and here I thought you'd be the calm one." Susan shrugged and smiled right back at him. "I am, that's why I'm going to make you regret coming here. You don't have a problem with hitting girls do you?" Before he could answer Susan stretched her arms out trying to grab hold of Spider-Man who leapt off the wall, landed on one of her outstretched limbs, jumped off of it and landed on the ceiling.

"Well that depends, are you a feminist?" Susan curled her arms back around trying to grab hold of him once again. "Yes, why do you ask?" Spider-Man somehow "let go" of the ceiling falling downwards, spinning about, and launching a blast of webbing which fixed her hands to the ceiling, before he landed serenely on the floor. "Well if you are, then you're arguing that women should treated the same way men are. That's why I only have a problem with punching women who aren't feminists.

Though in your case I might had made an exception anyway, taking into account the fact that you're more like a giant mass of living rubber that just happens to have been poured into a feminine mold than a real woman." Two thoughts occurred to Susan at the exact same moment. The first was that what Spider-Man had told her was a perfect explanation for why she hadn't been menstruating recently. The second was that she was going to make him seriously regret saying those words.

It was easy to, she curled her entire body into a giant sphere, and promptly showed Spider-Man he wasn't the only one present who knew a thing or two about swinging around the city. With her hands stuck to the ceiling they were in the perfect position to lift the rest of her body into the air, and by tugging on them she was able to generate the momentum to swing herself at him like a wrecking ball.

He tried to dodge, but Susan just increased her size mid-swing until there was nowhere for him to dodge to, and this time it was with an ungraceful "THUMP" that Spider-Man slammed against one of the building's walls. He slid to the ground, and somehow (while wearing a mask) now managed to imply the crossed eyebrows of one who was extremely vexed.

"You know for a girl who is supposedly made out of rubber, you certainly hit like a ton of bricks!" Susan for her part playfully bounced off of the other side of the wall, getting ready to pull the same trick again. After all, if it ain't broke don't fix it.

"Well that's sort of my specialty. Ready to get another taste?" Susan swung forward but even as she did so Spider-Man acted. "I hate to turn down my hostess' cooking but I'm already full!" He shot out more strands of web and yanked them up. Then, even though Susan struggled to make herself as large as possible, he still managed to successfully roll underneath her body. As he rose to his feet, he let loose with another blast of webbing, that left Susan's arms stuck to the ceiling, and her spherical body attached to the floor. "That should do it, not that I'm the kind who likes to keep a woman tied up on principle, but a guy has got to do some crazy things to keep his melon in one piece at times."

Susan rotated her body around so that she was facing Spider-Man instead of looking towards the wall. "Funny that you should mention melons..." Susan wasn't exactly proud of what she did, next, but sure enough he was a bit too busy staring a the form of his oncoming "doom" to dodge out ut of the way, even with his supposed spider-speed and super-reflexes at work.

"You know... this brings an entirely new meaning to the phrase 'dirty fighting' if you don't mind me saying so, well that and 'booby trap', obviously enough." Susan grinned at him across the room. "They say if you've got it flaunt it, and far it to me to toot my own horns, but they seem to be doing a fine job of keeping you in place."

Spider-Man jerked himself back and forth slightly. "From where I'm struggling they don't so much seem to be horns as a full-on orchestra. Oh and by the way you're single right? I mean I'd hate to think that a good sixty to seventy percent of my body is rubbing up against someone else's funbags."

Susan glowered at her captive. "Well it's nice to know you're a gentleman, but they're 'my' funbags' thank you very much, and I can feel every bit of what your left hand is doing." Now it somehow seemed like the mask was turning from red to pink in tune with the fact that the man wearing it was probably blushing. "You're the one who brought the fight down to this particular level.

I mean honestly, if you're gonna use those things as weapons then you should expect them to be commented on. The same way if you're gonna wear makeup you should expect guys to comment on it." "Excuse me 'if' I was going to wear makeup?!" Susan increased the pressure, but as she did so, Spider-Man somehow managed to find just the right position to let him jerk his left hand free.

He fired a strand of webbing up to the ceiling, wrapped it around his wrist, pulled, and before Susan's very eyes he managed to pop free. As he was pulling himself upwards, his right hand remained pointed downwards and let loose with another blast of webbing leaving Susan's body stretched into an even more ridiculous position.

"Allow me to say a few words that you're probably unlikely to ever hear again. Ahem, keep your breasts away from my body!" He once again leapt to the ceiling to take stock of the situation. "Now then, the two of you seem to be caught in quite a sticky situation.... Susan was nonplussed despite the fact that she was simultaneously stuck to the ceiling of one side of the room and the floor of another. "Please, it'll take me a minute at most to wiggle my way out of these things.."

Johnny nodded eagerly. "Yeah, trust me all I need is to really pull on these things and then the floor will give way beneath me at which point I'd need to take the elevator back up here, but still it'd get me out to this particular problem." For the second time Spider-Man dropped off of the ceiling, flipped around and landed on his feet.

"You know what, I think it's time to bring this particular exhibition to a close, since I've at the very least I've managed to fight the two of you to something like a standstill." Susan began to slowly work her way free from the webs. "What are you talking about?"

Spider-Man spread his arms out to show that he was done fighting. "Well, I figure that given how you four are richer than all get-out, and that the acronym FF works just as well regardless of whether it's Fantastic Four or Fantastic Five, you guys might want to, I don't know put me on retainer or something and make me an officially member of the team.

I wouldn't even demand an equal fifth share, I'd be glad to work for you guys for say, two million a year." Susan and Johnny looked at each other, luckily neither of them had to answer. /In response to that request, allow me to be perfectly clear. No.\ Spider-Man looked around for a few moments. "I'll assume that's 'Big Brain' and not me just hearing voices in my head all of a sudden? Also assuming its the former, do you mind if I ask why?"

Reed was not only kind enough to say why, but continued to explain to speak "loud" enough that all the others could hear. /First, the Fantastic Four is a non-profit business, regardless of how much profit we end up acquiring due to my various patents.

Secondly of all, if we hire you then it won't be long till everyone with superpowers and a desire to be rich starts showing up our door and thus the team will become the Sensational Six, then Seven, then Exceptional eight, and quite frankly even with my vocabulary I have trouble thinking of an impressive word to put in front of 'nine' should the situation call for it.

Thirdly, there's the fact that you wear a mask and have a secret identity while we don't. Which means taking you on in any official capacity will seriously complicate our relationship with the law enforcement community. Those three elements added together lead to one simple conclusion: as impressive as your talents are, we're not interested.

I'd suggest you leave now, or I'm going to activate several of the building's defensive features, and you should be aware I had stopping super-powered individuals in mind when I created them. You've got exactly ten seconds, and from what I've observed of your speed you're going to need three of them to get to the window. Ten.\

Spider-Man continued to look this way and that before he finally came to the obvious conclusion. "Well then, I'll just be going..." He raced over to the window he had entered through.

In a surprising move, Johnny managed to tear away the webbing that was holding him in place without totally wrecking the floor beneath him. "You know, if you guys would make me a jetpack I could go after that jerk." Susan glared at him, and Reed's presence somehow managed to glare at him even without eyes, an impressive feat to say the least. /No.\ "No!"

Johnny shuddered slightly, and then shrugged. "Okay then, fine. Given that we've now had enough excitement for one day, I'm going to go grab one of my cars and take a spin around town. You guys can go do whatever." He transformed his skin from metal back to flesh and walked out. Susan twisted her neck around to look at the room. "And I suppose you expect me to take care of cleaning up all this?"

It was asked with marked sarcasm due to the fact that it was clear that there was no way even a superheroine would be able to clean up the damage that had been inflicted upon the room by herself. /Actually, I'll hire some contractors to take care of it...\ She couldn't fault Reed for at least trying to make things easy for her. "Great, in that case umm... is it okay that I don't feel like finishing our game?"

/Don't worry about it Susan, after all it gives me a chance to figure out how to synch up some kind of mechanical claw so that not only will the machine decide what move it wants to make, it will physically make them as well. Perhaps if I synch up some kind of pressure sensitive system to the board, it will also automatically know what moves I've made...\

Susan really had to hand it to Reed; he was never at a loss for how to create a machine to find a mechanical solution to a problem, or how to improve an already efficient machine. That said, it boggled her mind (and made her stomach feel queasy) to imagine just what he might come up with if she asked him to deal with the problem she'd been suffering with for the last five months now...

----

Susan looked over the group's hangar after being summoned there mentally by Reed about three hours since Johnny had departed from the Baxter Building. Ben was already there as well, but that was hardly her main concern at the moment. "Okay you've got me, what are we doing with one what looks like an almost ridiculously large bomb, and the worlds fanciest bathtubs?"

/Well in actuality the 'fancy bathtub' as called it, is a prototype flying machine that I've been working on." Susan and Ben both turned to look at the other tool present. "And the bomb?" There was a pause, the kind of pause which suggested that neither of the would like what he had 'to say' on that particular issue. /Well to put it simply, it's a bomb.\

Susan and Ben exchanged looks, since Ben had asked the last question it was now her turn to talk again. "So what exactly are these things doing here?" The answer to this question was even less encouraging than then his last one. /Johnny said we'd need them.\ Susan let her neck hang down to her belly button out of a mix of irritation and despondency. "If my brother isn't on a very perverse scavenger hunt, then this is going to end badly. Well let's just go see what new way he's found to screw up this time around, and why he thinks we'll need so much firepower to deal with it."

---

Johnny was waiting for them by docks and his car. He was in his human form and had a somewhat bemused look on his face. "Uhh, hi guys, you're going to laugh when I tell you this...." Susan unlike her brother jumped right to the point. "Far be it for me to laugh when I say this, but no we aren't."

Johnny looked at his wrist even though he wasn't wearing a watch and then got on with explaining. "Well you see, while I was walking around town I saw this really interesting bum fight..." "You know I take that back, something tells me I am going to laugh when I hear how we go from 'interesting bum fight' to bomb that looks like it could take out an entire city block."

Johnny did not blush, he clearly believed that this story did in fact have a reasonable, beginning, middle, and end that lead from one another. "Look, when I say 'interesting' I mean that one of the guys reached over, ripped a chunk out of a building and hurled it at one of his opponents.

Now as you might have guessed, the fight didn't last very long after that. I took a few moments to size the guy up, and at that point proceeding to show off the kind of facial recognition skills that have apparently eluded prize-winning journalists for years, was able to look at this guy and imagine what he would look like without his scraggily black beard.

One quick warm meal and a shave later paid for out of my pocket, I was officially one hundred perfect certain that I was in the presence of Namor the Sub-Mariner." Susan's scepticism was rising by the minute. "So we've moved from superpowered transients to fiction characters from half a century ago."

Johnny showed his trademark ability to say the most unbelievable thing in the world without giving off the slightest hint that he was recognizing how unbelievable it was. "Hey, none of us were even born yet when World War Two was going on, so who are you to make judgements about whether or not superheroes existed back then?

Anyway, he had amnesia. I figured that he'd just been out of his element for too long, and chucked him into a ocean. Which, just as I predicted, did a great job restoring his memory, of course the downside was that apparently at some point between when he lost his memory today, we, by which I mean humanity in general, did something that destroyed his underwater kingdom.

He was, understandably, a little peeved about this, and the last I saw of him he was swearing that he would get revenge against the 'surface dwellers' by unleashing all the horrors of the deep upon us, starting with this city. At which point I realized that I might be in things just a little over my head and contact Reed. So hopefully now whatever kind of creature he summons up we should be able to stop it form doing too much damage to the city."

Susan looked at Johnny and then down at the water. "So in other words, we best gird our loins for the possibility that he's going to attack us with salt-water-dwelling amphibians? Something tells me that we won't actually need a giant bomb to turn back an army of invading sea turtles."

Of as she should have known, no sooner had she spoken then Susan could just make out something very large and green rising out of the water, she estimated how large it would have been if they were close to the thing and then turned back to their unique mode of transport and its contents.

"You know what, on second thought, painful as it is for me to admit it, my brother is right. We've got exactly the right amount of bomb to deal with this problem. Let's go fly out there and drop this thing on that thing and call it a day." /I don't think it will work.\

Susan looked straight up into the sky even though Reed was actually a fair horizontal distance from their current location as well. "Why not, and what are we going to do about it?" /Well I can't be absolutely sure it won't work actually, but as we only have one shot it rather behooves us to make sure that we stop that thing with it. Preferably by detonating it a fair distance inside the creature.\

Ben looked at the thing, looked at the bomb, and looked at what they had to transport it. "You know, I think that this is shaping up to be the most difficult bombing run I've ever faced. How exactly are we going to drop that thing even if we do get that monster to say 'ahh' long enough? Just push it over the side when the moment seems right?" /I have a somewhat more effective plan in mind.\

----

"You know, I really, really, hate this plan, sis." "You're not alone." "No, I really hate it." Susan was holding onto Johnny and the bomb, by having wrapped around the large explosive and her brother and the top of the ship. On a whim she could relax her grip slightly and send the two of them plummeting downwards.

The monster was growing larger and larger as they drew closer, but since neither of them had been able to come up with anything better... So it was either Susan wrap her body around her brother and what felt like a couple hundred pounds of high explosive, or a very large portion of New York got stomped on before the military could stop this thing.

"So Big Brain, about how much of your money are we going to blow enacting this brilliant plan of yours?" There response they got back came in the form of an exhausted sigh. /I'd just as soon not think about it. Besides, if the city will probably attempt at least a token reimbursement considering how much it would cost to repair the damage that thing might do to it, let alone the loss of human life.

So do you all have your parts of the plan memorized?\ Despite the awkwardness of the situation Susan smiled. "Well if we don't then you can always telepathically remind us of whatever we've forgotten." Without another word, Ben got to work, increasing the ship's speed.

As they drew within veritable spitting distance of the monster however, it suddenly twisted about, and lowered its head, shooting out a huge jet of water at them. Ben jerked the ship's controls, and though it was too late to doge, he was able to minimize the damage.

Instead of taking the blast of water straight on which might have "swamped" their bathtub, it struck the bottom of the ship. Of course the downside of that manuever was that it also meant that Susan and Johnny were taking the blast more or less head on. Without a second thought, she tightened her grip, and expanded her body, in effect cutting off her brother's oxygen supply.

She knew he wouldn't like it, but it would also keep her from "taking on water" increasing the amount of weight she had to hold onto, not to mention she didn't have any idea if the bomb's detonator was water proof, since if it malfunctioned and the bomb went off right here and now all three of them were probably going to be blown to very tiny bits.

/I'm sorry...\ As the water blast abated Ben gritted his teeth, but shrugged all the same. "For what exactly?" /I should have realized the obvious, creatures that live in aquatic environments but breathe air, have blowholes, whether they're whales, dolphins, or something else entirely. I should have warned you about that danger before it took you by surprise.\

Ben shook his head and once again put their craft back on its course right towards the monster. "You can apologize for it when we're all safe and sound. Besides, it looks like we've got ourselves a target of opportunity coming up..." Sure enough, seeing that it's target hadn't been destroyed, the creature was starting to open its mouth and crouch down, evidently intending to take another big gulp of water to launch at the annoying fly approaching it.

"Looks like he's reloading, all right boys and girls, time to see if this flying bathtub has what it takes to be a genuine flying crate." Susan nodded and detached three of her limbs, leaving her left leg wrapped around the vehicle. That one limb wasn't enough to support her brother and the bomb however so this lead to the rest of her plummeting downward while Johnny promptly transformed into the Mandroid.

They plunged into the great gaping void of the monster's mouth. In fact they even plunged neatly past its tongue and down its throat leaving them, Susan didn't particularly want to think where. She began to unwind herself, resuming a more-or-less human appearance of it wasn't for one incredibly stretched-out leg. Meanwhile Johnny grabbed hold of the bomb with both hands and lifted it up.

"Okay, here's the plan, we're going to take this giant bomb as far inside as we can easily go, then I yank on your leg and get pulled out of it." Susan nodded as she casually wrapped her arms around the bomb so that she wouldn't have to waste her energy stretching forward; her own brother would do a fine job of pulling her along on his own.

"Yeah, and thanks to this strange glowing algae stuff that it apparently eats by the truckful, there's even enough light for us to see by." Johnny nodded, and after taking a few steps forward in silence he proceed to speak up in a painfully chipper voice. "So how are things going between you and Reed?"

Susan glowered profoundly at him. "Why, for the sake of God, do you want to talk about that now?" Johnny looked around for a few moments, and then pointedly refrained from actually looking back at her. "Well I'm probably gonna short circuit and develop a bad case of claustrophobia if I spend too much time in here actually thinking about the fact that I'm in here.

So if nothing else, take one literally for the team and make polite conversation with your brother. So how are things going between the two of you?" Susan kept right on glowering, even though she gave into his request, with a few caveats. "First of all, coming from you that's hardly a polite question. Second, he doesn't have that body you promised me he'd wind up with yet, so how do you think things are going between us?"

Johnny shrugged, the huge bomb bobbing up and down slightly. "Well, a guy can never be sure. That said, I'd like to make it clear that 'I' didn't promise you that he'd get a body back. I want to make that clear in the off-chance you go seriously crazy down the line and think its justified to try and put his brain in my body, especially considering the horrible, horrible, implications that would result from that act.

I was just saying that the odds are stacked in your favor, and get a little bit better every day." Susan finally stretched her neck out enough that she could loop it around and look at her brother. "Yeah, well, it certainly doesn't feel to me like there's some huge throw of the dice about to take place which is going to suddenly make things in my life a lot better."

Johnny looked away from her, but Susan continued to twist her neck so that no matter what direction he looked, he was locking eyes with her. Finally, he gave into the inevitability of it, and talked to her face. "Hey, we're still easing into this entire superhero thing. After all, today we had our first utterly pointless, fight with another superhero for needlessly convoluted reasons that could have been avoided if people had bothered to actually talk things out with each other!

Before we know it, we're going to find ourselves in a situation where two of our foes joined together only to have their partnership fall apart just when they've got us on the ropes. Hell, look at this entire thing with Namor, if we find out that he's under some kind of mind-control, then that's another inevitability that we can cross of the list."

Before Susan could give any kind of reasonable response to that comment, (assuming such a thing was possible) a very loud sound intruded upon their conversation. It sounded strangely like the "clicking" of several tiny cameras, followed by a very loud hissing. Then they saw it. "Oh come on, even I find that thing ridiculous!"

The fact that Johnny found it implausible was all that really needed to be said on the issue. The Storm siblings found themselves face to face with something that vaguely resembled a cockroach the size of a tank. It scuttled forward and with a shrug of his shoulder's Johnny dropped the bomb and looked at the huge monster. "Umm, sis, why don't you work on setting this thing to blow, while I go pound a few new dents into that thing."

Susan watched intently as her brother drew closer, and the two armored opponents prepared to do battle. /Umm Reed, looks like things are getting a bit complicated in here. So how exactly do I arm this bomb again?\ Luckily as it turned out the directions weren't all that complicated. /Well first you need to flip the green switch on the command panel on the top of the bomb.\

Susan began to reach towards the necessary switch, however one of the creature's huge legs slammed into the bomb, knocking it aside. "Damn it Johnny, would it kill you to give your older sister a chance to work?" Johnny grabbed one of the creature's oversized legs, using the leverage to toss it across the whale's stomach. "Well I'm trying to do just that, but it's not making it easy! Tell you what, do you want to switch places and then with me, you can fight this thing while I activate the extra-large bomb. Are you up for it?"

There was an awkward pause and then Susan stretched off towards the bomb. "Thanks but no thanks, Johnny..." She slithered over to the bomb and tried to right it. She didn't have much luck, but after a judicious application of that oh-so-rare superpower, common sense, she realized that the bomb would go off just as well laying on its side.

So instead she approached the problem from a slightly different angle, and had no problem at all flipping the green switch that Reed had mentioned. /Okay that's taken care of, now what?\ /Now you need to enter in how long you want the bomb to count down for before it goes off. I'd suggest two or three minutes.\

Susan shot the difference and entered in two minutes and thirty seconds. /Okay now what?\ /Well Susan, you need to make sure that you only do this when you're ready, flip the red switch, it will start the countdown.\ Susan sighed and rotated her neck around like an owl so that she could look at the upside down screen comparatively right-side up, not to mention the switch that needed to be flipped.

"I got you now, you oversized pest!" Susan stretched out her right arm and still-free leg wrapping them around her brother who was in the process of driving the creature's two front limbs into its own carapace. "We're leaving, now." Johnny suddenly adjusted his grip on the monster's legs slightly causing an unpleasant snapping sound to echo through the much larger creature's belly.

"But sis, it's still alive!" Susan began to wrap herself around him making it clear that she could still quite easily revoke her brother's ability to stand upright should she wish to. "Well, if it survives the bomb going off, then it has every right to take over the world after we nuke ourselves into irradiated dust. Now, do you want me to leave you behind or not?"

Johnny's skin became flesh-colored, his entire body, much lighter, and before his opponent could take advantage of this change, Susan's left hand had flipped the red switch and started to yank Johnny backwards as they extracted themselves from the giant monster's body much more quickly than they had entered it.

"You know, right now I am inside a giant monster, having just left behind a huge-ass explosive device and having beaten the crap out of a smaller but still proportionally giant monster, am making my escape with what, since I last checked, was a beautiful woman. If she wasn't my sister then this would be the unequivocally coolest moment of my life."

Susan refrained from making clever comments, instead preferring to just keep retracting her leg and pulling the two of them closer and closer to the creature's jaws; strange that this was a comforting thought.

They passed through the creature's still slightly-open mouth, and were flying through the open air, getting dragged towards their somewhat unique craft. It was while they were halfway there that the bomb went off, and flames bellowed out of the creature's mouth and smoke rose from its nostrils. By the point that they were climbing back on board the ship and turning their attention to the defeated monster.

After the blast, it had begun to slowly sink towards the water, and luckily it gracefully dropped below the waves, rather than plunging in them hard enough to create a tidal wave. "Nice job you two." Johnny shrugged and smiled. "Yeah I know, I wish I could say that it was a cool to do as it looks. So, um now what..." /Now we need to try and find Namor before he summons up any more monsters to attack the city, a task which will be significantly harder...\

Susan used her powers to momentarily make her eyesight a bit keener (the effect was comparable to having built-in binoculars) and sweep the nearby areas for anything suspicious. "Hey Johnny, the guy we're looking for, he wouldn't happen to be wearing what amounts to a green Speedo and have little wings on his ankles, would he?"

She allowed her eyes to go back to normal before she turned to look at her brother, since looking at someone close by with her eyes stretched out for long range viewing would be a surefire way to get a headache. Since Johnny's skin was still in its normal state, his blush was extremely noticeable.

"Well... yeah." Susan pointed in the necessary direction. "Take us over there. Along the way, Johnny you can explain it to me how you were the first person in five decades to realize that someone had wings growing out of his ankles..." Johnny quickly transformed, possibly to hide just how embarrassed he was and grabbed a hard enough hold in the vehicle that the chassis would doubtlessly be warped slightly when he let go.

"He was wearing loose, long pants when I first ran into him, that's all I've got to say. Now then, let's get in close and I'll see if he's in a more charitable mood than last time we talked. And if he isn't the three of us will just have to stop him." The ship pitched downward, and Johnny jumped out creating a small creator when he landed.

"Okay Namor, are you willing to talk things out, or are you still determined to wipe out human civilization as we know it?" The black-haired, blue eyed, impeccably well- sculpted Sub-Mariner raised the sea shell horn. "You think you have stopped me just because you have defeated one of my servants? So long as I have this horn, I can call forth an army the likes of which you have not the power to imagine!"

----

Susan tried not to hide a smile as he said those words. She tried and failed. With Namor busy posturing dramatically for her brother, it was child's play to snake an elongated arm down and neatly yank the apparently magical horn from his hands. "Take us up, Ben..."

Their ship began to grow even more distant from the ground, and Susan started to retract her arm, pulling the horn along with her. Namor looking at his prized trinket being stolen away from him in a manner that could only have been more undignified if Susan had uttered "YOINK!" in the process, fumed with rage.

"No one makes a fool of the Sub-Mariner and lives to tell the tale. Imperious Rex!" it was at this point that he jumped into the air, those tiny ankle wings flapping and it soon began quite clear that he wasn't just jumping, but actively FLYING. "There is no way that he should be able to do that!"

It was at this particular point that Namor wrapped his arms solidly around Susan's wrist and yanked. Before she knew it, Susan was pulled right over the side of the flying bathtub. She had the presence of mind to hurl aside the horn in Johnny's general direction before she landed and was momentarily reduced to a disjoinfed, flattened approximation of a human being.

Not that she particularly minded, since she was clearly able to see that Namor was keeping his eyes locked firmly on her instead of his magical civilization-ending horn. He drifted a few feet above the ground watching intently as she went from a mass of blue to something human. "What manner of strange creature is this? Its nature is like nothing I have ever seen before, and yet its appearance is...."

By this particular point in his speech Susan had just about finished returning to normal and was trying to pointedly not look in the direction that she had seen the horn go. "In appearance, it is I do believe the most comely creature I have beheld in all my years."

Susan went from trying to look at nothing in particular to gazing at Namor in irritation. "You can't be serious..." Namor's wings began to beat a bit more softly and he touched down softly next to her. "The Prince of Atlantis does not jest in matters of the heart. You know if you were willing to become my bide, I just might be willing to forgive the rest of humanity for its thoughtless actions."

Susan's eyes bulged out just a bit more. "You really think that you can try to destroy this city, yank me out of a flying ship, and now you're proposing to me? That's funny, but no." Not to mention, the last thing that Susan needed in her life at the moment was a third romantic interest.

"Ahh the classic feminine response. You might spurn my first offer, but you have no idea just how much I could offer you." Susan looked him straight in the face. "Yeah, I'm gonna come and join you in your kingdom under the sea just because you asked me to, especially when last I heard it was pretty badly banged-up.

That sounds like loads of fun, I'd be glad to say good-bye to everything and everyone I've known up to this point in my life, especially when I'm already ridiculous wealthy and well-respected without needing to worry about any of the work that doubtlessly would accompany being a princess or queen, since I assume there is more to the job then just looking pretty."

Namor's eyes took on a quality that Susan would consider most comparable to an overly- rambunctious puppy dog that was chasing its favorite ball out into the street, right into the path of an oncoming eighteen-wheeler. "Ahh it pleases me to my very bones and marrow to see you are willing to accept my offer."

Ultra-Woman was left with no choice but to blink a few times. "Since you clearly missed the point by a couple of miles I'll spell it out for you. I was being sarcastic. I have absolutely no desire to go for a walk in the park, let alone spend the rest of my life with you." Namor at once slammed his hands into the ground and ripped a large chunk of concrete out of the ground.

"I will not be denied an explanation for why you refuse my incredibly gracious offer!" Susan looked at Namor, sighed and shook her head, she could fill a book with that explanation, she really could. "Listen, at the moment I'm love with someone else who is a really great guy, though there's the minor stepping-stone of him not so much being a guy at the moment, as a brain in a jar.

Which means the shortest explanation I can give you for why I don't care about how much you have to offer me, is because I'm otherwise taken." Namor at this point displayed just how gracious he was in defeat on the battlefield of love by hurling the chunk of concrete at her, an action that might have been more impressive if it wasn't for the fact that Susan didn't particularly feel the need to try and dodge it.

Surely enough her prudence was rewarded with the object hitting her elastic body and bouncing right off, smashing itself to bits on the ground beneath Namor's feet. "That pathetic bit of obviously testosterone-induced posturing over and done with, do you mind if I ask you what exactly you plan to do about me saying no?"

"I will summon forth a horde of creatures that will drive every human on the face of planet back to the caves and trees they hesitantly emerged from countless years ago! All I need to do is issue one great blast into my horn and then..."

"This horn?" Namor turned around just in time to see Johnny tear the doubtlessly mystical horn in half, drop to the pieces to the ground and proceed to jump up and down about half-a-dozen times. "Ooops, my bad."

Surprisingly, this turn of events Namor took rather calmly. "So it seems that today is not to be the day that you impudent surface-dwellers feel the true extent of my wrath. Very well, know that your victory today makes no true difference, for just like the tide, I will return!" With that he turned his back on them, took a running leap and plunged into the water with a dive that would have earned a unbroken string of "6.0"s from every judge present. "Johnny watched the faint ripples that quickly vanished and then shrugged. "Well then, I guess we're done here." As if to emphasise the point, Ben landed their vehicle down so that it'd be easy to get back on board.

----

So after dealing with one annoying and misguided superhero and then one downright dangerous and REALLY misguided "superhero" (at least if her brother's was to be believed) she was right back where her day had started, playing Go with Reed Richards. Making that helping Reed Richards play Go with a machine he created for that purpose. /It was a bad move Susan.\

She casually looked over at the machine which was telling her what to do. "Well it's not my fault, I'm just following orders." The container shook slightly. /No I mean, with Namor....\ Susan stretched out her neck, even though height was already ruinously in her favor and glowered at what remained of him.

"What? You thought I should have given myself to him the moment hat he asked?" There was a very awkward moment as Reed was silent, choosing to move make another move, rather than answer her at first. /Well not at first, but if it came down to it...\ Susan let yet another moment when her jaw was threatening to give way and her lower lip hit the floor.

"I can't believe you'd say something like that." There was a very awkward pause between the two of them. /Well what can I say. If the situation had taken a turn for the worse then it would have behoved you to do what you could to save as many lives and limit the damage as much as possible. It was... possibly a mistake to have rejected Namor's offer so utterly, burning a bridge as the saying goes.\

Susan reached far, far, far, far, back into her tremulous grasp of history, and managed to somehow excavate the facts she needed to the surface of her mind. "Well sometimes burning bridges is the way to go, especially when you can take one look at where the bridge leads and know you don't want to go there. Reed, I think there are more things in the world than to get literally swept off my feet by some prince and dragged off to his magical kingdom.

I guess I'm just a bit too practical to imagine that having that kind of thing happen to me would be my happily ever after. Besides, how exactly could I possibly be happy thinking what it would mean for you guys to try to get on without me? Besides..."

She paused for a moment and then shook her head as she realized that what she was about to say was utterly pointless, since it would involve asking Reed Richards to be personally upset because of what she meant to him. Wasn't it? Susan gazed deeply into Reed Richard's container and sighed. It really was impossible to tell just what how he would feel about her leaving his life.

"Not to forget, after spending so much time in this outfit, it'd be hard to relearn how to walk around in a dress and heels, let alone swim in them underwater. I guess I just wasn't born to be a princess." /I disagree.\ Susan wasn't sure if to be insulted or flattered.

End Chapter nine.

AN: And thus ends chapter nine. By the way this story will soon be moving over to the Comics -- Fantastic Four section of as of most likely, two weeks from now, it's where I've already moved its sister story Swelling With Love if you haven't already noticed. That would also nominally be the time I update it with chapter ten, but with finals coming up, and all that is still rather up in the air so bear with me, it may not be up till around New Years.


	10. Chapter 10

Original Twist Chapter Ten, Rivals: In which Reed Richards meets an old friend, and recognizes him too late.

Susan sighed as she squirmed and slithered her way through the completely and utterly uniform surroundings. /Why am I always the one who gets stuck crawling through the ventilation shafts?\ She was asking the question rhetorically, but because at the moment the team was split up and unable to communicate with one enough through conventional means Reed had made it easy for them to hear each other's thoughts, which was why her brother's answer jumped right in front of her train of thought waving its arms about exuberantly. /That's because in real life, unlike in movies, ventilation shafts are perfectly sized for chihuahuas instead of Great Danes or human beings.\

She couldn't particularly argue with him, since she had needed to thin down her body a fair bit to gain access to her current location. /So does anyone, have any idea why anyone would bother robbing the Natural History museum? I mean come on, what can they possibly steal that they'll be able to sell for anything close to a reasonable price?\ This time Johnny wasn't able to come up with an effective comedic comeback, so instead Reed just provided her with a dry logical one.

/At the moment they seem to be heading towards the exhibit on pirates.\ This however, Johnny was effectively able to make fun of. /So they're stealing stuff that 'belonged' to pirates, well it's a good thing I don't come with a built in irony-o-meter, because that would have broken it.\ Susan sighed as she continued to work her way through the ventilation shaft. /Look, let's just get this over and done with. I mean come on, something tells me that people who steal from museums aren't the most dangerous villains out there.\

As Susan finally reached the necessary exit from the ventilation shaft she got a good look at the situation. /Okay, I'm in position, how about you two?\ /I'm waiting in the rafters just out of sight, Tin Man, it's all on you.\ /I'll get to work as soon as you as you want me to.\ She heard the sound of Ben's wings flapping and she stretched herself out through the vent. She saw three ordinary-enough looking men in orange jumpsuits, and one... thing.

It was best compared to some kind of orc or ogre from a fantasy movie. It was about seven feet tall, had dark green skin, an extremely ridged forehead with several bumps, and Ben had apparently just snatched something it had been in the process of stealing. Not quite ready to take on an unknown, she went for the three human-looking villains.

Just like every other time it really was child's play for Susan to lower herself downwards and loop her body around one of them and either arm around another before pulling tight on all three at once. The trio let our cries of surprise and dropped their weapons. Feeling the need to go that extra few inches, Susan managed to lengthen her hands enough to catch two of the guns and nestled the third into a nest made of her midsection. "Excuse me boys, Ultra Woman is just doing her part for gun control."

As usual the men struggled slightly, but even if the three of them had been able to coordinate their efforts, she still could have easily retrained them and tied them all up with a nice little bow and ribbon should the desire strike her. It was at that point that Johnny came around the corner and the green-skinned thing that had been looking at Ben turned to face him.

"Who are you to try and stand in the way of my master's aims?" Johnny smiled at the creature. "We're the Fantastic Four, and whoever your master is we're gonna make sure that you go back to your 'master' empty-handed with your tail between your legs!" However as he approached the monster, it shot some kind of weird yellow beam out of its eyes that caused him to go completely still at which point it proceeded to slam its jade fists into his head, knocking him to the floor.

Seeing that her brother had taken, an at least momentarily disabling wound, Susan turned the two strange-looking weapons in the direction of the creature and pulled the triggers. But rather then fire, the guns just clicked, as if they were unloaded. Not about to try and figure out how exactly the weapons worked, she promptly hurled the things at the creature.

Only one of them connected, though it did nail her target the back of the head causing it to turn around. Sadly, by the time she saw eye-to-eye with the thing, it was quite clear that the only part of the creature that she'd hurt was its feelings. "Foolish..."

It got no further than that, however, before Susan struck. After throwing the guns, she'd started to wind up her right arm up for a punch with plenty of centrifugal force behind it. She let loose with it now, and it nailed the creature firmly in its jaw.

The thing wasn't knocked over but it did rock back on its feet and looked slowly around at its three opponents and its captured companions. "Though you are indeed powerful for mortals, on your own, none of the three of you would stand so much as a icicle's chance in my true master's domain. However facing all three of you together might be risky, and thus I leave...."

Before the three of them could do anything, the thing was suddenly surrounded by a huge puff of grey smoke, and by the time the smoke the gone, so was it. The superheroes present looked at each other and then at the minions who were still firmly in Susan's grip. Ben calmly landed in front of them and took a few moments to over elaborately crack his knuckles. "Boys, you're going to jail."

----

A considerable distance away from this robbery, a dark figure watched the events take place before him in a crystal ball. His gauntleted hands curled into fists. A pair of blue eyes that were cold as the ninth circle of Hell scowled heavily and a single word could be heard, though it was slightly muffled by his metal faceplate. "So...."

----

Susan walked back into Reed's lab and saw him drifting back and forth in the water-filled tube that had been his latest invention. It was a series of pneumatic tubes that allowed him to move through the entire Baxter Building at will, even if he spent most of his time in his lab as always.

The three weapons that Ben had returned back to their home with while Susan and Johnny had taken care of turning in the thieves, lay on the table before him. "So do you have any idea why those guys were trying to steal some piece of junk that might or might not have belonged to Blackbeard the pirate?"

Reed's brain shifted back and forth in an approximation of a shaking head. /No... but... this technology, it's something I've seen before, though I just can't remember where. The guns weren't designed to fire metal projectiles but blasts of energy, and they had special sensing devices built into them to make it impossible for anyone but their intended bearer to use them.\

Susan placed a hand over her mouth as she giggled. "What, did I hear that right? You can't remember something, Reed Richards? I hate to say this, but all things considered, in your case if you don't have your mind in working order, you don't have very much at all, do you?"

There was an awkward pause as her joke fell flat. "Well if this technology strikes a chord with you, why don't you go poking around in the heads of the three hired goons we captured?" Reed telekentically lifted one of the guns into the air and rotated it about slightly. /Economy of effort. I've no reason to believe that we need to know what's going on right this moment, so I'll let the police try to get the truth out of them using more standard interrogation procedures. The team will just have to wait until we find out more from them.

That, and... you can tell the others I'm sorry about making you all work on Christmas Eve.\ Susan blushed as she turned around. "Reed, we're superheroes, not doctors. If there was something that needed us to take care of it, and that thing which was apparently some kind of demon was definately an example, you don't need to feel bad about us sending us out to deal with it."

/I know... but still, I wish I could go myself...\ Susan left Reed's laboratory and headed to her bedroom. She wished she could say that visions of gumdrops danced in her head along the way.

----

Susan walked out of the bathroom, having finished all the normal tasks of awakening and began slowly donning her Fantastic Four uniform. /So, do you like it?\ It was still early in the morning and thus out of gut instinct she twisted her head around to look for Reed, even though he was probably clear on the other side of the building. "Do I like what?"

His mental voice sounded strangely shy and unsure. /Your Christmas present, I left it your on your dresser.\ It was only when she looked straight at the location in question did she realize there was a small blue box tied with white string and remember: yesterday being Christmas Eve meant today was Christmas.

Somehow, the entire thing had slipped right by her. But then, it'd been two weeks ago, when she'd got Ben a couple of books on the subject of aviation, and her brother a few custom licence plates for the fleet of cars that he was slowly collecting. As for Reed... as for Reed, she'd asked if he wanted anything and he'd told her that he didn't want presents.

The entire thing had seemed a little silly after all, it had always seemed silly to get a present for Reed (not that she'd had to do it very often) because there was nothing she could get him that he couldn't afford himself, and the things he wanted were usually so scientific that Susan had to ask exactly where to find what he wanted, and how to pronounce it correctly.

Somehow, she'd assumed that since she wasn't getting him anything, he wouldn't be getting anything for her, but apparently she'd been wrong. Susan gently undid the white string and opened the box. Inside were a pair of earings, white circles with blue "4" in the middle of them, the same design as on their costumes. They were a little gaudy, but considering Reed had obviously designed them himself, that was more or less to be expected.

"Oh nice." Her tongue made slow clockwise rotations about her mouth. /Damn, damn, damn. There's a dirty joke staring me right in the face and of course I can't tell it!\ The joke involved "four fours" since every part of her uniform had the teams logo on it somewhere. Thus, if she was wearing, say these ear rings that would be two fours, and if she was wearing her undergarments (and only her undergarments) that would be another two fours, adding up to a total of four fours.

But there was nothing to be gained by saying it, so she just kept her thoughts in her head, and hoped they didn't wind up in anyone else's. She removed the earings from the small box, and carefully examined them. Originally she had just been doing it for dramatic effect, but she soon came to a rather startling conclusion.

"They're clip-ons, Reed. I got my ears pierced before we met..." She didn't mean to sound disappointed, it was just that it was hard to imagine that at some point Reed wouldn't have noticed that particular miniscule, but important fact, and filed it away untill he needed it. Reed's voice on the other hand had now become quite relaxed. /Would you care to bet? Well to be more exact, would you care to bet that your ears are still pierced?\

She slowly ran her gloved hands along her earlobes, searching for the miniscule pair of holes she'd gotten driven into them. No matter how carefully she searched, those holes refused to reveal their presence however, leaving her rather befuddled. "Huh, wow, can't believe I didn't notice that untill now..."

---

Susan leaned against the gates and sighed. Inside the park, she saw children playing with each other, running about making snow angels, throwing snowballs at one another and otherwise enjoying all those winter games that could only take place while there was snow, and so engaged in with a truly unprecedented joy.

"Aww..." She contemplated just what it would mean for her to get involved in such winter games. Hopefully, unlike bullets, snowballs would still shatter properly against her body rather than bouncing off of it. Susan began to tap her hands on the gate, and various ideas flew through her head about just what she could use her powers for in such activities.

It'd be easy to scoop up an entire shovel's worth of snow, curl her arm around it firmly enough to turn it into one large snowball, and then use her powers to slingshot it at whatever target she wanted. In fact, that idea was so attractive to her that she'd have to make a note for later, since she couldn't think of anyone more deserving of getting a pelted with an extra-large snowball than her brother. Aside from that, she could also use her powers to act as a living sled.

Susan paused in midthought and looked down at her feet. She probably wouldn't be able to do a very good job of shifting them into built-in ice skates but as Reed Richards was so quick to point out, she wouldn't know until she gathered some empirical evidence. So many different fun games, and no one to play them with... Susan hung her head in amazement and shock as she thought herself for a moment. /So many games and no one to play them with. Yeah, in retrospect that's exactly my problem in a nutshell. So many games and no one to play with, that's been my problem for the better part of six months now.

Six months, half a year, didn't know what I was missing till I lost it, and now... oh boy am I missing it.\ She watched as the children continued to throw snowballs back and forth ducking behind trees in the process bringing Susan to yet another conclusion. If nothing else, her elastic body would always be capable of making a good human shield. "Human..."

She muttered the word to herself in distaste as if it was a curse, mainly because it was what she seriously wished that Reed still was and he obviously would never be again. She turned away from the gate and sighed. "Damn it. "I hate this." "Well bah humbug to you too, Susy Q."

Ben proceeded to make an incredibly graceful landing in front of her, his feet barely sinking in the snow. Susan scowled at him, and proceeded to carefully walk around him, leaving deep treads in the snow. "Ehh what can I say, my last Christmas was a lot happier. After six months of the two of us datin,g Reed offered me a key to his house as a Christmas gift. That meant a lot more to me than the earings that he gave me today."

Ben laid a hand on her shoulder and carefully leaned a little closer to inspect her earlobes. "Well if nothing else, they do look good on you." Susan pushed Ben's hand from her shoulder. "Thanks. But I was only wearing them for him because I felt bad about the fact that I didn't get anything for him. That and, and I wish that he could see them with his own eyes." Ben got the hint and refrained from pressing close against her a second time. " Well I guess that makes two of us."

-----

/I guess that makes three of us.\ Reed had momentarily taken a look a the general area around Ben and Susan when he'd heard them mention his name aloud, but made sure to broadcast his thoughts only to he room his was in, not wanting them to think he'd been looking a their minds.

"And I can make that wish a reality." Reed had been paying precious little attention to the world around him and thus was utterly shocked by the discovery that when he bothered to "look" at his lab he discovered that someone had somehow managed to enter it without setting of any of the buildings alarms!

The man's appearance went perfectly hand in hand with his fairytale-like sudden popping into existence without any sort of prior warning, he was a few inches over six feet tall if Reed guessed correctly, and was dressed from head to toe in what looked like a suit of anachronistic medieval armor either painted or constructed of materials that were midnight black.

Looking at that armor Reed once again couldn't help but ask himself the question of how it was possible for someone to be wearing something that looked so bulky and heavy to have moved silently enough that Reed hadn't 'heard' him enter. In addition to the armor he was also wearing a heavy green cloak that combined with the faceplate of the armor made it impossible to tell the mans hair color or any other distinguishing feature besides his size and his ice cold blue eyes.

/And who exactly are you?\ In response, the man promptly gave a chuckle that was dry as the Sahara. "You may call me 'Doctor' and like you I am a man of immense intellect who has dedicated his life to helping those less fortunate. It has not escaped my eyes that over the last few months for all of your brilliance, Big Brain, you have done precious little to help yourself..."

Reed felt insulted. That was strange, very strange, because normally he kept such pointless emotions firmly under lock and key, but apparently such was not to be the case today. /Not done anything to help myself? Then what exactly do you call this pneumatic tube system I've designed so that I can transport myself across the building far faster than any human being could walk? Is this nothing to you?\

The Doctor began to take a few haughty steps, and now indeed the sound of his metal boots on the floor was impossible to miss. "In its way, of course not. But would you compliment a mechanic who finds himself lamed and who manages to create for himself the finest crutches in the world, without ever even considering crafting himself a wheel chair?"

If Reed had hackles, his visitor's tone of voice would have had them practically leaping off the back of his currently nonexistent neck. /And that particular metaphor applies to our situation how?\ Despite the metal faceplate, Reed could tell that Doctor was smiling behind it, his every word dripped smugness like water off of a recently used towel. "Simple. Though you lack all the traditional human organs, you still posses a whole and undamaged brain which is capable of comprehending information through the traditional five senses is it not?

It would be my pleasure to construct for you a robotic body that would provide you with a more traditional interface to the world. It would be child's play to, for example, directly hardwire the sections of your brain responsible for sight into a pair of cameras, allowing you to see the world with your own eyes for the first time in far, far, too long.

Think of it, you might once again be able to walk among your fellow man who you strive so hard to protect. To be able to actually stop and smell the roses, a simple treat denied to none of our companions." The man raised a valid point but for some reason Reed could not put a mental finger on, he was loath to admit it. /That may be so, but at the moment I am also living in splendid isolation. By refraining from dealing with physical matters I am able to bring my full mental prowess to bear on solving the countless mysteries of our world.\

"Bah!" The armored man tossed the word out as if he had been born with just that expression of disdain upon his lips. "Do you think I approached you out of the blue? Do you not think that just because you are lacking the appropriate organ that you are truly heartless? Your great mind has desires outside the world of simple numbers and equations, does it not?

Is the sheer vastness of your brilliance any comfort at all in the late hours of the evening, when your perfect untiring mind continues to dash from one puzzle to another, searching desperately for some problem to keep it occupied, to prevent you from realizingthe only puzzle you truly wish to solve is, how can you recapture the feeling that comes from holding the hand of the woman you love?

Well, I have a solution for you. Unfortunately the tools necessary to enact it are not easily transferred from one place to another, and to make sure the machinery will properly interface with your mind, I'll need to have you present as I get to work." Reed slowly began to drift towards a particular section of the tube. /If... if it means that I could be with Susan again..... if nothing else, my time is not so well spent that I could bring myself to spurn your offer. Very well then, I'll move into my portable caring tube and on the way there I'll inform the others of my decision.\

He knew he was acting rather rashly, but it was the very nature of life for a man to measure risk against reward, and act accordingly. Going into space had seemed the right action, when measuring risk against reward what seem like a lifetime ago. Taking any chance he could to regain some semblance of a true human body seemed the right course of action now.

Yet, no sooner had the man taken the carrying tube into the his hands and disconnected it from the rest of the system of tubes then he attached a strange minuscule device to it. "I think not, Richards. You always were too trusting by half, and I told you that one day it would be your downfall. Well now you will see what happens when you don't follow the doctor's orders!"

----

Johnny stared at the strange craft that he'd discovered occupying the Baxter Building's hangar. First of all, it looked more like some kind of private jet, then a repurposed spaceship like the Pogo Plane. Secondly, its color scheme was all wrong, it was black and red instead of blue and white which seemed to be the default colors for stuff belonging to the team.

He certainly didn't remember Reed talking about the team acquiring any new vehicles, and yet if this thing was here but wasn't supposed to be, then there should have been a veritable shitload of alarms going off, instead of it being quiet enough to hear a pin drop.

Well that, or the sound of someone in heavy armor stomping around the place. As a man dressed in black armor and a green cloak walked into the room holding a container with Reed's brain in it, things slowly began to fall into place. "You know, I think you're in the wrong building, the Renaissance Fair is three blocks down. Now, why don't you put down my teammate, before I make you?"

Indeed, the armored figure carefully placed the container upon the ground, but nothing in the nature of his movements suggested that he was even the slightest bit perturbed. "This was unexpected, but hardly unplanned for. Very well then, you clockwork clod, do your worst."

Johnny did just that, and yet it felt like his punch ran into an iron wall a few inches short of his foes body. "Now do you see the genius of my designs?" The armored figure let loose with a wicked right cross that left Johnny teetering. "This armor might look antiquated, but in truth it contains equipment the likes of which you can not even fathom, not only does it provide me with an impenetrable shield, but increase my strength to the point that coupled with my intellect, it is more than a match for your brute force!"

To prove his point, he grabbed hold of Johnny and proceeded to throw him into one of the hangar's walls. To the Baxter Building's credit, Johnny did not go through this wall, though it did collapse in on him, leaving both of his legs and his right arm pinned beneath the rubble.

Meanwhile, the figure in black armor wiped off his gauntlets and began to pace back towards the container which held his teammate's mind. "That pathetic diversion out of the way, all is now in place for me to continue. The time is at hand when the entire world will tremble at the name Victor Von Doom!"

Johnny was in no mood to listen to this guy monologue, regardless of what his name was, but there wasn't much else he could do at the moment. Luckily as Big Brain himself would be so prone to pointing out "not able to do much" implied he could do something. With his free arm he carefully began to probe the "4" symbol on his chest. Reed had, out of sheer redundancy, built tracking devices into all of their outfits, just in case for some reason he was unable to locate them through his psychic abilities.

Of course that was a plan that could work both ways. While Victor had his back turned, Johnny pulled the magnetic patch from his outfit and hurled it at the black and red vehicle which obviously belonged to the man. Seeing it attach successfully, Johnny proceeded to go limp. He'd wait for Victor to leave, and then start digging himself out of this mess as best he could.

-----

Luckily, Johnny didn't need to go about the complicated process of freeing the rest of his body with only his left arm to work with, because before he was even a quarter of the way into the process, Susan and Ben arrived and got to work helping him. Of course while they did he started explaining to them what had happened.

At first they were both quite attentive listeners, but when he brought up the subject of his assailant's name, Ben looked as if he had been the one who had recently had a wall dropped on him.. "You're sure he said his name was Victor Von Doom?" Johnny nodded as hest he could while laying flat on the ground with his legs still buried in rubble. "Yeah, why?"

Ben hesitantly drew back taking in a very deep, very uncertain breath. "Umm, Susy do you think you can take care of digging your brother out on your own? This is gonna take me a while to figure out how to say properly." Susan just flashed Ben a grin, and got to work, not about to emasculate him by letting him know that her elastic body didn't even break a sweat moving pieces of rubble to large and heavy for him to budge.

"You both know how Reed and I were roomates in college, right?" A quick pair of nods. "Well that was more by accident than design as you might have already guessed. You see about the same time as they were accepting Reed, who they considered a major get for their prestige, since even way back then just about everyone knew that he was a genius. But they also scored another big prize, he was a kid about Reed's age named Victor Von Doom. If I recall correctly Doom came from some more or less poor plague-ridden Eastern European country that was probably only just starting to recover from having been under the Soviets's thumb back then.

Word around town was, like Reed, he was another guy with a brain so big it was a wonder that he could fit it inside his skull, so when the time came, Reed wanted to be roomates with him. But Victor wasn't interested in making friends or partners, and so me and Reed ended up rooming together, while Victor got a single and the privacy he waned.

Unfortunately, rooming arrangements wouldn't be the only subject that Reed and Victor argued over, and sometimes when they went at each other over science-related stuff it seemed like even the teachers didn't have a clue what exactly they were talking about. Then one night Victor was doing some kind of strange experiment in his room and came close to blowing the whole place to bits.

The college kicked him out after that, obviously enough, but, the thing is that the night before his accident Reed told me that he saw some notes for what Victor was working on by mistake, and spotted an error in them. The two argued over the error, and Victor refused to admit that he could be wrong. The fact that he apparently suffered more than a pair of singed eyebrows in the resulting accident, makes it pretty clear that, as usual, Reed was right in the end.

Still, if there was anyone on earth who I'd say was close to being as smart as Reed, it's Victor Von Doom, and if there's anybody who can hold a grudge for a long time without ever talking to or laying eyes on the person they hold it with, it's Victor Von Doom. I can't even begin to fathom a guess about what he wants to do with Reed, but somehow I doubt its to look over their old yearbook photos."

With a great and mighty heave, Susan finally cleared away the last of the rubble that was keeping her brother pinned to the floor. "Well then, there's no two ways about it, we've got to go after him. I'm guessing Victor isn't quite as smart as he thinks he is, given that he didn't bother to disable the Pogo Plane on his way out of here, so we'll just fly after him, wherever he's gone!"

Ben flapped over to a nearby table and picked up a piece of equipment. "Already ahead of you. Reed was kind enough to show me enough of how the Pogo Plane actually worked that I should be able to pilot it without his assistance just fine. Now I know how after a thumping like the one Victor just gave you would like to..."

"Ben, I don't care what kind of robotics joke you're about to make, even if it involves references to lubricants, or nuts, I can honestly say now is not the time for humor. Now is the time to watch my sister put a brick in her purse and go to town on a guy who should have known better than to mess with somebody who Susan Storm cares about."

It was just as he was saying the very last word, that the permafrostial, for "icy" was to warm a word for it) glare fell upon him. "I mean now is the time to go get Reed back before that whack job -- who clearly has some sort of weird medieval fetish -- does anything to him!"

---

"Welcome to your final resting place, Richards..." As Victor spoke the words he connected the small container to a larger equally clear dome fill with liquid, doing so in a manner that left the container standing straight up. Thus when he opened it, gravity naturally caused Reed to slide out of it and into the contraption that had clearly been built to house him.

/What... do you mean?\ Victor staired at the device for a few moments his face utterly inscrutable, though the mask he was wearing made that more or less a given. "So it seems on the lowest setting my psychic blockers are not quite enough to fully inhibit your abilities. No matter, after all, I wouldn't want you to suffer your untimely fate without knowing exactly what I have in store for you, and just what you will help me create.

You see, the machine around you is designed to harness your psychic energies and transmute them into raw power, at the expense of every last scrap of your overrated personality, I am not displeased to announce. Then I will use that energy to power experiments the likes of which even you could not comprehend!"

Reed began to drift about his new prison, learning its dimensions by the most "hands on" method imaginable. Sadly, it was all he could do at the moment, since the concentration necessary to get any kind of visual data on his surroundings still eluded him. /Don't tell me you're trying to perform the same experiment that got you thrown out of the University, you'll only end up killing us both this time.\

Victor Von Doom chuckled as he curled both of his hands into fists. "Your concern touches me deeply, Richards, it truly does. But I have something else entirely in mind. At the University, I was trying to transcend the barrier between our world and that to come. My new plan is less grandiose and more practical: simply a device designed to give myself the ability to move through the fourth dimension as I see fit."

/A time machine?\ A simple, curt nod. "Yes Richards, you did so excel at parroting back anything you were told. Once my time machine is fully operational, there will be nothing that can stop me from conquering the world, not only in the here-and-now, but in any time I wish! Why simply settle for controlling the mystical energies of Blackbeard's treasure, when they have obviously been diluted by the passage of time, when I could pluck them from his hands when they were at the very height of their power?"

/If you're so sure of that, why haven't you used it already?\ A mocking scoff was the only reply he received at first. "What, and end your utterly miserable existence so soon? Tut-tut Richards, Doctor Doom does nothing by halves. Before I end your miserable life, I want you to be able to witness the rest of your so-called Fantastic Four proving themselves no match for my mechanical masterpieces.

Why do you think I didn't remove that tracer which was so obviously attached to my ship before I took off? You see, revenge is like a fine wine, best left to sit and age properly, and then when finally consumed, each and every drop must be properly savored. If my scanners are correct, I do believe your trio of inept companions are approaching my fortress even as we speak. Sadly for them, they are about to learn that Castle Doom is not so easily breached!"

-----

Countless aged and harmless-looking turrets that adorned the castle suddenly sprouted modern weaponry which laid down a horrendous crossfire on the Pogo Plane. Ben did his best, but not even he could safely manuever the ship through the storm of metal and energy weapons. "Looks like we're gonna have to jump ship!"

He began to get to work, unbuckling himself as his mind strove to remember which lever he had to pull or button to press to disengage the glass-like canopy currently sealing them inside the cockpit. "Really, and me without my parachute?"

Ben glared back at Johnny, but before he could say anything Susan wrapped her arms and legs tightly around his brother's back. "I'll take care of that, Johnny don't worry. I just hope we don't get shot to pieces out there..." Ben finally found the (luckily labelled) switch, yanked it hard, and a moment later all three of them were in open air.

Ben of course soon managed to slow, and then cease his fall by flapping his wings. Susan, on the other hand, enlarged her body into a semicircle of elastic flesh so that it would trap as much air as possible, creating a parachute for her brother that, remarkably enough, was able to slow him down, despite his weighing as much as several normal people.

Susan and Johnny began to drift gently downwards. Amazingly enough, all the castle's previously-demonstrated firepower had gone silent. Since at the moment he had nothing to do but make sure his sister didn't somehow lose her grip on him, Johnny decided to make conversation. "So, am I the only one who feels right now that we're walking, or gliding as the case may be, right into a trap?"

Susan elongated her neck enough so he could see her nodding. "Of course, but it's not like we have a choice." Ben gave a partial smile as he carefully control his rate and direction of decent to keep him within easy speaking distance of the two. "Besides, occasionally there's no better time to pull a trap on someone then when he thinks he's about to pull a trap on him."

Johnny promptly extended this line of reasoning to its "logical conclusion" as only he could. "Okay that's all fine-and-dandy, since we know its a trap, but what if the guy setting the trap wants us to know that its a trap and then has a second trap set up, of course we know that he's got to know that we know its a trap, so does he know, that we know, that he knows that we know?"

Susan and Ben exchanged looks, neither daring to venture a comment. As their reasonably-paced descent came to a close, all three landed softly on a lowered drawbridge. They made their way forward, and quickly noticed that, no sooner had they taken about two dozen steps inside Doom's castle, then the path split off in three different directions. "More traps?" "More traps." "But we're still going to split up anyway, aren't we, sis?" "Yep."

----

Susan decided to go straight ahead and began increasing the length of her legs , allowing her to take incredibly long steps which let her cross several meters with every stride. However, as she entered into a more or less normal-sized room, she compacted her body back to its usual stature, and began to look around to see if she could spot any obvious traps before she triggered them.

Of course in the time she spent looking, a thought was nipping away at the back of her mind, if Victor Von Doom really was in the same league as Reed Richards when it came to intelligence, then her spending time trying to find traps he might have laid for her was only giving him more time to spring those traps.

That particular line of reasoning proved all too apt, as the doorway she'd just entered through slammed shut. Susan quickly pressed her hands against it,probing to see if there was enough of a gap for her to fit through, but sadly it was completely airtight.

A moment later, the other obvious exit from the room (a door on the other side of it) slammed shut as well. Susan paused to examine the room a second time, looking not for traps, but for exits. That was when some kind of spigot opened up in the ceiling and a thick gooey grey substance began to flow forth from it. The first glob of the stuff was enough to splatter Susan's feet, with more on the way.

As the quickly growing tide of fast-hardening concrete began to rise, she stood there with a stoic expression upon her face. "Okay so I"m now waiste deep in cement, no big deal really..." Then she took as deep a breath as she had time for and got to work stretching.

It was the equivalent of threading the eye of a needle with her own body, but she did it. Susan twisted and turned herself through increasingly small gaps, as she made her way over to the door at the other side of the room. Then she strove with all her might and will to try and locate the opening. That had to either exist, or she would somehow will it into existence.

Sure enough, before the concrete could fully solidify and trap her in its heavy embrace, she escaped from the room through a extremely tiny gap between the door and the heavy shutters. "Uhhh...."

She lay there, flat on the floor, and took a very deep breath, nodding in approval as her lungs reinflated after that harrowing experience. "Nice try Victor, nice try, but it's going to take more than that to stop me!"

------

Victor Von Doom watched the proceedings through various viewscreens connected to ingeniously well-hidden cameras, and though it strained Reed's mind to so much as even glimpse the world around him, he could feel himself growing more and more used to the painful effects of the device Victor had designed to keep him powerless.

Clearly, his old foe hadn't been able to properly calibrate it for the amount of energy Reed had at his disposal, but then, moving too quickly had always been Victor's weakness. "It would appear that your companions posses either a greater intellect, or at least greater helping of base cunning than I originally assumed, Richards. Not that it matters, for none of them will stand a chance when the come face-to-face with Doctor Doom!"

Reed switched his train of thoughts onto a different set of tracks. Moving too fast was the nature of Victor's errors, but the cause of those errors was his temper. A temper that if properly exploited, might end up helping his teamates chances in some infinitesimal way. It might not be much, but it was still something.

/Ahh yes, so tell me Victor, given how you were thrown out of State University for performing dangerous experiments without permission on college grounds, exactly what university did you enrol in next? I must admit out of a rather perverse interest, I did try to keep a lookout for your name in the papers, but you seemed to have vanished off the face of the earth.\

Sure enough Victor turned his eyes away from his monitoring equipment and towards his captive. "Realize the intent of the universe when it took away your mouth, and be silent!" Reed had no intention of doing that in the slightest. /Well, doubtless you were able to find a school somewhere that would be willing to take in a man of your intelligence, even if it was coupled with your reputation as a loose cannon.

I'm sure, because I doubt even someone with an ego as large as yours would call themselves 'Doctor' without bothering to have attained the title from an accredited institution." Reed could only just make out Victor's eyes through the faceplate he wore, but those eyes were starting to narrow with barely-controlled rage.

/After all, even though I'll admit the phrase 'doctor' has been thrown around to the point that it's rather diluted since it no longer requires you to be a healer, it still does depend upon one having a doctorate. Like the one I have in physics, or the one I have in chemistry, or the in one biology, or the one in...\

Before Reed could rattle off the field in which he held his fourth PhD, Victor reached over, grabbed hold of the device attached to Reed's tank, and twisted a knob on it. Pure undiluted pain, such as can only be comprehended by one who is having the portion of their mind responsible for generating the sensation set into overdrive, lit his synapses alight with pure undiluted agony.

Yet he welcomed it, welcomed it because even though it left him in a state of disjointed half-blind confusion, Reed knew that however bad it was, it was only a mental sensation. There was nothing wrong with his body: he did not have a body for things to be anything wrong with. He had learned a great many things in his life, and knew that he would learn how to work through the mind-bending pain running rampant through his cortex, he only hoped that he would learn fast enough.

-----

The three superheroes reunited as they continued to work their way through the hallways. Time was of the essence, but she decided to make at least a small attempt to explain to her teamates just what had happened. "Giant tank of concrete."

Johnny was nonplussed by this abrupt description of a deathtrap, most likely because he had one of his own. "Huge spiked cylinders like something out of a bad Indiana Jones movie, oh, and really powerful magnets under the floor." Before he cold claim that there had also been some kind of metal eating termites Ben cut him off.

"Giant aerial obstacle course filed with floating bars." The three of them shared another quick smile. "Well, none of those things were enough to stop us, so let's keep going, sooner or later we're going to find Doom."

-----

After more traversing of the giant castle (and luckily, no more traps) the three finally came to a ornate wooden double-door, and Susan paused for a moment. "Johnny?" He stepped forward and calmly began to crack his knuckles. "Be my pleasure, sis."

He proceeded to punch the door, leaving a large hole in it. Then he punched it again, and again, and again. He did it about a dozen times, untill the entire thing was nothing more than a couple of splinters. Behind them stood Victor Von Doom, and countless pieces of machinery.

"So you dare to invade my inner sanctum?" Johnny shrugged and tilted his head at an inquisitive angle. "You mean this isn't gift shop? Because I was really looking forward to buying some 'Doomiest place on Earth' T-shirts to hand out as souvenirs later!"

Victor was unimpressed as he snatched up a weapon that apparently was a twin (well maybe more of a quadruplet) to the one that the three henchmen in the museum had been armed with. "How very droll. Now let us see if you know more than how to open your mouth and let whatever pathetic witticism you have on hand fly out."

He pulled the trigger and a beam of yellow energy flew forward and struck Johnny in the chest sending him flying backwards. Susan promptly stretched herself out to cushion his fall but unfortunately she misjudged just how much force doing so would put upon her and the sheer magnitude of the impact momentarily knocked Susan senseless.

----

Lesser men would have fled or been left helplessly trembling in fear after seeing there two more powerful teamates left momentarily floored by one blast of an opponent's weapon. Luckily the sight before him inspired Ben Grimm to neither. Instead he calmly rose a few feet into the air as Victor looked down the barrel of his weapon at him.

"How kind of you to arrange yourself before me like a witless quail on a fine summer's day." "Just keep those led lips of yours flapping metal mouth, I've got a plan but, if you want to save me the trouble of implementing it then I ain't gonna complain."

Victor squeezed the trigger and another beam of yellow light left his weapon, however at the same time Ben barrel rolled to the side and the attack passed harmlessly through the area where she had once been. Then he dove at Victor who began to realign his weapon for another shot, but before he could Ben twisted over inverting his views of up and down allowing him to lash out with his wings themselves against the barrel of the gun.

As Victor pulled the trigger only a pathetic wine came forth and with one hand he dropped the now useless weapon while the other reached out to grab hold of one of his opponents wings. "Aww did your little toy break that easily? Guess that's what you get for insisting on using science fiction style gadgets that haven't been tested yet!" Without another word Victor used the leverage he had achieved to slam Ben's body against the ground with such force that it rendered the winged man completely unconscious.

----

Yet no sooner did Victor looked up from the crumpled form of one unconscious foe than he found himself once again eye to eye with Jonathan Storm. "Well now that you don't have your little fancy blaster lets see how much of a fight you've got left in you!" Victor shrugged nonchalantly and it almost seemed as if there was somehow a breeze within his castle causing his cloak to flap dramatically.

"I already handily bested you once and that was when you had the homefield advantage as they say. But since you have clearly learned nothing from that embarrassing defeat perhaps being reduced to a pile of cogs will prove a more instructive experience?"

In actuality Johnny had gained all the instruction he needed from his first fight with Doom. Rather than rushing pell mell at him, he began to circle his opponent slowly. Doom began to circle Johnny as well, but after the two had taken about a dozen steps his patience ran thin. "The soon to be emperor of all the world has not time for your childish games." He stepped forward and swung at Johnny who met Doom's punch with one of his own, knuckle to knuckle.

There was a crunching sound of metal on metal and as the two pulled away it was clear that Victor had gotten the worst of it as the gauntlet on his right hand had apparently been put under such stress that it promptly split open and fell from his hand. "Just like I though, you have to lower that forcefield of yours whenever you're about to hit someone, and it looks like when we're going muscle to muscle I'm made of harder stuff."

Victor gazed at his unprotected right arm in something close to shock for a moment and then he drew himself up pompous as ever. "Indeed your head must doubtlessly be hard enough to smash diamonds if you believe that this means anything in the grand scheme of things. You might be able to absorb electrical energy, but lets see if you can handle every ounce of power remaining within my armor!"

He raised his left hand and a stream of blue lightning bolts arced from it that immediately left Johnny rooted to the spot. There the two stayed, Doom casting forth all the energy that remained within his armor Johnny being assaulted by it, untill finally the young man couldn't take any more and dropped to his knees, before laying flat upon the floor.

---

Susan who had observed much of Victor Von Doom's battle with her brother through heavy eyes rose shakily to her legs which felt like they might give up at any moment. Whatever was in those energy blasts was still making her woozy, but that didn't matter, she couldn't let it matter, not when she was the only one with any fight left in her. "If you used up all of your armor's energy fighting my brother, then what do you have left to counter THIS?"

Susan threw herself at Doom transforming the lower half of herself into what amounted to a giant mattress as she pressed her armored opponent up against the wall. She felt Doom's legs kicking out harmlessly at her well-cushioned body, and smiled. "I'm going to make you pay for what you did to my brother.... and the man I love!"

However, as Doom's legs stilled, it was not with the acceptance of one who has realized a fight is lost and given up, but rather with the slowness of one who has ceased to panic and started to plan. "I grow weary of hearing such pointless prattle in my ears, Ms. Storm!" He swung at her face with the fist that was still encased in an iron gauntlet and connected. Susan's entire body reeled back and her vision of the world became even more disjointed.

"Ironically if you had bothered to compose yourself more fully, you might have been able to take advantage of my moment of weakness. But since you did not, I will take advantage of yours!" He struck her face again with his bare hand, and Susan could feel her body being distorted by the blow, getting bent out of shape like a lump of silly putty. She should have been snapping back to normal, should have been able to shrug those hits aside, but for whatever reason her elastic body was uncooperative.

Then she saw the armored fist coming again, and as it slammed into her face it left Ultra Woman's head as flat as a pancake. Her body soon followed suit as she fell to the floor, laying there like a giant blue puddle.

---

Victor Von Doom stood half-exhausted over his opponents, triumphant despite his badly-damaged armor. His voice, for once was almost giddy with excitement. "See! See Richards? See how your friends lie helpless beneath the iron-clad sole of Doctor Doom?" As he spoke planted his right foot firmly on Susan's limp body and began to press down firmly, as if trying to leave a footprint upon her that would never fade.

"Now! Now I have you and your friends to do with as I will. That mechanical man, I think I'll take him to pieces and use to augment my armor, assuming that there's any part of him worth saving. The winged one I don't see much use for beyond a hunting trophy. You, of course, will be a battery to power the device that will make me the most powerful being to ever have existed, and as for this one..."

As he spoke, he bent down and grabbed a handful of Susan's rubbery flesh. "This one, however, I have no doubts she will yield to me so many different things. To have escaped my concrete trap shows her body must be incredibly supple, perhaps if properly restrained she'll make a fine set of bedsheets, or lacking that, a throw rug for me when I'm not experimenting on her."

/G.. .w.. ..o. h..\ Victor slowly turned in the direction of the tank that held his still- conscious foe. "What was that?" It almost seemed as if bubbles were starting to form, possibly due to the water within the tank being brought to a boil. /I said -- get away from her!\ Victor cackled, as instead he grabbed hold of yet another handful of Susan's body with his free hand.

"Or what, you helpless pair of hemispheres? You know, upon reflection it's almost a shame that using you to power my time machine will destroy any traces of your personality. I would so rather enjoy getting to gloat over you for the rest of eternity, allowing you to watch first-hand as this world is finally united under my glorious rule.

Of course, any ruler needs heirs. Assuming there is still a functioning uterus within this misshapen mess, I just might use her for that purpose. Her intelligence of course leaves much to be desired, but there are proper methods to make sure that our children do not grow up to inherit her foolishness.

If nothing else, I do believe there is at least a proper fighting and ruling spirit. Besides, how well she would shape my heirs is but a mere trifle, compared to the joy knowing I possess the one thing you wanted, but could never have! Who knows, with the right treatments, her mind might prove to be as malleable as the rest of her, and she might even come to love me; and wouldn't that be just wonderful?" /Get -- away -- from -- her!\

One moment, Victor Von Doom was crouching over Susan Storm's unconscious body, the next, armor and all he was thrown across the room. He scrambled back to his feet and watched in horror as electric sparks began to dance up and down along Reed's prison.

/I'm going to make you regret saying those words Victor, even if it's the last thing I do!\

No sooner had Doctor Doom regained his footing, then he was once again hurled up against a wall like a carelessly flung tin soldier. His voice betrayed not a hint of panic. "Do you think just because you've overwhelmed my failsafes you've won? That you'll get to save the day and your comrades, Richards?

This changes nothing! I have a built-in self-destruct system. All you've done is delay the inevitable and hasten your own demise. Computer, activate program Valeria!" The sparks around Reed's prison began to increase in intensity. /NO!\

There was a blast of glass and electricity and water and things best left unnamed filled the room. The armored figure sank back to the floor, the force pinning him to the wall having vanished.

----

Susan blinked her eyes clear, and quickly took stock of the situation, there was lots of smoke and broken machinery all over the place, but absolutely no sign of Reed, and standing amidst the chaos was Victor Von Doom.

So he'd gone and done it. As she was losing consciousness, she'd thought she'd heard him talking about how he was going to do something or other and destroy Reed. And apparently, he'd done it.

Ironically, for a woman who could absorb just about any physical impact by shaping her body in response to it, Susan Storm snapped. "You killed him?" She wasn't in the mood to play around with fancy attacks this time, nor was she as thoroughly disoriented as she had been last time, she had her head on straight and now she was going to do just one thing: get even.

Her arms shot out, wrapped around the surprised Victor Von Doom, and yanked him over to her. Then her right hand plunged towards his uncovered right arm. "You feel that, Victor? That's my arm moving through the gap in your armor, racing up along your body, across your shoulder, and just now I can feel it going around your neck. Can you feel it?"

Either a mix of his armor and her limb prevented him from doing it, or Victor didn't want to show the weakness that would come from nodding. "After the way my brother damaged your armor, it really is child's play for me to get inside it, and now that I am, I can do anything I want to you..."

She sent her arm sliding down his back towards the tips of his toes. "I could crush any one of your bones if I wanted to. I could end your life by constricting your windpipe with ease. But then maybe I don't want you to die that quickly, because at the moment, death seems too good for you...

My own body provides me with all the leverage I need to snap your spine like a toothpick and leave you crippled for the rest of your life. The only question is: which one of your vertebrae do I dislodge?" Her arm retracted slightly, and began to rub slowly up against various sections of his spine. "The man who you just killed taught me most of this, let's see how much of it I can remember. If I break this one, then you'll never be able to use your legs again. If I snap this one a little higher up, you won't be able to use your legs or properly use your arms, though you will be able to move your shoulders.

Of course, best of all, if I apply the correct amount of pressure to this one, then you won't be able to move a damn thing below your neck for the rest of your hopefully very long life." It was at this point that Victor said EXACTLY the wrong thing. "Very good, Susan." In response she lifted the armored figure up into the air, and then firmly slammed him against the floor. "Shut up!"

Ben and Johnny had recovered as well by this point, and they were both watching the proceedings more or less slack-jawed, completely unwilling to intervene one way or another with the raw force of vengeance that named Susan Storm at the moment. "In the last few months do you know what I've realized? Just how fragile the human body is! All those bones, all those muscles, all that skin, all those orifices....

Do you know how easy it would be for me to make you deaf? All I have to do is twist my fingers in through your ears, and do a good enough job of puncturing your ear drums, and just like that, you'll live in world of silence.

Do you know how easy it would be for me to make you blind? All I have to do is extend my index fingers into your eyes, and then you'll live in a world of darkness. Death is too good for, you, so how you would like to know how Reed must have felt? I'll do all three of those things to you, and then you can live the rest of your miserable life alone in a world of darkness, unable to see the hands you cannot move, unable to hear those you'll need to take care of you, that seems like a fitting punishment to me! So you tell me, what do you want to lose first: your ability to move, your ability to see, or your ability to hear?"

Victor continued his streak of having absolutely no sense of timing. "Susan, it's me, Reed...." She hurled him across the room into a pile of already broken machines and then picked him back up. "I said SHUT UP!"

To his credit, Victor began to speak in a perfectly calm tone of voice. "My name is Reed Richards, I was born in..." Susan slammed him against the ground again. "I SAID SHUT UP! YOU KILLED HIM! You and Reed knew each other in college, and you had him at your mercy for quite a while out here.

There's not a single thing I don't believe you wouldn't have done to him to get him to tell you all the pithy little details of his life so that you could try and pull something like this off in case you lost. Well you aren't going to fool me, there's nothing you could say that would make me believe you're really Reed Richards!"

"It was years before we started dating that I first met Victor. How much about you do you think he could have made me tell him? What kinds of questions do you think he would have asked me? Your name is Susan Storm, you like it when I rub your chin, the first time we did it, the position we were in was..." Susan slowly rotated the body she held in her hands about and two pair of blue eyes looked deeply into one another.

"Oh no.... I mean oh yes... but if that... what did I just do...?" Susan's arm retracted from the armor. Then, as the armored figure was left once again standing on his feet, Susan threw herself at him, wrapped her arms around him, in the process, her body began to sag, turning into a puddle only supported by the man she was leaning against.

Johnny watched this happen, his face assuming a look impossible to define. "That is quite possibly is either the most heartwarming or disgusting thing I have ever seen. I think we just saw the first, AND PLEASE GOD LAST time that the Fantastic Four was saved by someone's extensive knowledge of my sister's bedroom antics."

---

"Reed, I'm sorry..." "Susan I already told you, you have nothing to be sorry about, the armor's shield system had started to come back online. It, or the armor itself, absorbed just about all of the attacks you threw at me." Susan however hadn't quite managed to absolve herself regardless of what she had been told, this particular conversation had gone on between them at least five times.

They had plenty of time to talk, since Ben was busy figuring out how to properly control Victor's jet, due to the fact that it was the only source of transportation they currently had access to. "It's just..." "Believe me, Susan. I understand how improbable it would sound to someone it wasn't actually happening to. But I realized since I wasn't strong enough to overpower Victor's mind, the only way to gain control of his body was to put myself directly in the driver's seat.

So I threw every single ounce of energy I had into the situation, and it worked. Victor was forced into what was left of my body, I gained control of his. He'd already activated the self-destruct system, which destroyed my brain with him inside it. Which I think, in all fairness, does seem to be about the most accurate definition of a karmic death that I can come up with."

Susan nodded eagerly. "Yeah. Quite frankly, I think from the fairly brief time I got to know him, between trying to drown me in concrete and bashing me around, I've had enough of Victor Von Doom to last a lifetime. But I'm happy that you're back -- well you know, not that you ever really left -- but I'm very glad that you have a body again!"

Reed looked down at Susan's body and then up at her face. "I can tell." Something in Johnny's tone of voice suggested that he wished he had handfuls of popcorn, or possibly an old boot, to throw at the two of them. "So can the rest of us, by the way! Seriously, sis, it's bad enough the two of you're only sharing one seat, but at the moment I am seriously tempted to start referring to the pair of you as either Rue, or Seed."

There was a certain amount of truth to Johnny's words, given that indeed the two were sharing one seat, and Susan had her midsection twisted a total of three time around Reeds. The feeling of her skin rubbing up against cold metal had never felt anywhere near so blissful.

----

Susan rolled back and forth on her bed, looking up at the ceiling. After the group had gotten back to the Baxter Building they had split up. Reed, to go to his lab and think about his new armor and body. Susan, to go to her bedroom, and do more or less the same thing. So here it was: D-Day, H-Hour, M-Minute... Reed had a body again.

It was not his body, but Victor Von Doom was more or less the same age as Reed had been, and same gender. For a moment, certain parts of her rose in protest: was the last really all that important? But they were quickly silenced by a loud denouncing shout that she would not start trying to figure out if she was Reed Richards-sexual until the situation called for it.

"Okay that's it. Since my body can't agree to cooperate like a proper matriarchy, we'll have to have to settle for this hodgepodge of mob rule that seems to come so easily, now that my organs are rearranging themselves every time I want them to. Okay we'll start near the bottom, and work our way up. Reproductive organs?" What they had to say on the issue was exactly what she expected them to; now that Reed had a body again it was time to go to town like there was a 90% shoe sale going on, or some other ridiculously feminine metaphor.

"So you're in, heart?" Her heart was at the moment primarily interested in looking out for number one. Thus, it wanted to make sure that Susan found out that Reed still loved her before it went about pumping copious amounts of blood southward. "Reasonable enough. Brain?" Her brain argued that she'd been for sticking with Reed from the start and the rest of her bodily organs were Jill come-latelies who should be bowing down to her for having picked the right course from the start.

Having collected all the necessary data, it didn't take her long to form a cohesive plan of action. "There, see, you three actually can work together, is that so hard? Now let's go take care of some necessary preparations.." Of course no sooner had she walked out of her room then she came face-to-face with Benjamin Grimm, just the man she had been looking for.

Ben jumped back slightly, his wings flapping hesitantly as if he'd been planning to enter her room in a few moments, and was as surprised to see her leaving it as she was to see him outside it. But then he regained his composure and pressed his right index finger against her lips in a request for silence.

"Listen, Susy, what you and I could have had together if we'd ever both brought ourselves around to really want it, it would have been good. But, and I can say quite honestly, I realized you and Reed were meant for each other before either of you did.

It makes me feel a little embarrassed about how I acted during the time between the crash and today, but that's in the past and can't be changed. Speaking of things that aren't likely to change any time soon... Reed, probably now more then ever, needs someone to help him figure out exactly what it means to be a human being. Something he had enough problems with before spending half-a-year as being nothing but a literal thinking machine.

As for you, you deserve a husband who can help you solve any problem you're faced with ,no matter how big." Susan extended her neck, craning it backwards so that Ben's finger was no longer pressed against her lips. "Ben, nothing personal, but if you thought having Reed in my life would make it simpler, then I think you misjudged things just a bit."

Granted, in all fairness if Reed couldn't have predicted that cosmic ray storm, then Ben doubtless couldn't have predicted the effect it would have on their lives either, and up to that point Reed, with his huge bank account and convenient place to live which didn't charge rent, had simplified her life. "What the two of you could have together would be, well, Fantastic, if you'll pardon me for saying so. Whatever happens between you two, you've got my blessing."

----

Reed looked at his face in the mirror, it was more or less exactly what he expected, or at least exactly the kind of thing he had expected to see. It hadn't been easy for him to get the mask off. Evidently Victor had decided the mask could only be removed by touching a certain part of the gauntlet.

But after a lot of trial-and-error, he could look at Victor's face, the face that would probably be his for the rest of his life. Unpleasant was the most efficient thing to call it. To start with there was a small but extremely noticeable scar on the left side of his face, though it was more or less eclipsed by the fact that the rest his face was covered with burns, burns that too perfectly fit the outline of the mask that had covered them to leave any questions in his mind about their origin. Clearly, when the mask had just been newly forged, Victor had pressed it against his face without letting it cool. So.

Reed's new body was something of a fixer-upper, he could live with that. Then, very slowly, he shook his head. Calling it a 'fixer-upper' was an insult to his new body. With the exception of a single flaw that was purely aesthetic in nature, in many ways his new body was an improvement over his old one.

Reed would probably never know exactly what Victor Von Doom had done after getting expelled, but it clearly hadn't been resting on his laurels. The definition of Victor's arms was better then Reed's had been, even when viewing his old body through the lens of nostalgia. Victor was also taller, and had a bigger... shoe size.

Speaking of shoes, then there was his armor. Reed couldn't help but think that as far as being a superhero went, next to spontaneously developing new superpowers because he'd been hit by lightning or for some equally improbable reason, this was about as close as a gift from the heavens as he was ever going to get.

The armor might look like it belonged in a museum, but beneath the veneer of obsolescence, it was nothing but pure state of the art technology. In fact, consideringVictor had evidently designed it himself, calling it state of the art was an insult: it was at least half-a-decade ahead of state of the art.

It housed what was apparently the world's most effective solar power generation system, that could also hold a charge for probably something like 24 hours of pure darkness (he was really only guessing, of course) to start with. It also seemed to interface with the movements of whomever was wearing it, so even though he'd only had it for a few hours already, every single motion felt perfectly natural.

Not to mention, Victor seemed to have planned to conceal enough weaponry (in various secret compartments) to take on an entire small country. Once Reed fixed the damage that the armor had suffered, not to mention made some improvements -- Reed would never have considered making something like this on his own, but that didn't mean he couldn't imagine how to make it better -- it would probably make him not just the leader, but also the most powerful memeber of the Fantastic Four. Then he looked back at his scarred and burnt appearance before once again donning the metal facemask. "Your armor or your body, Victor; I'm not sure which I'll get more use out of."

Then he thought about Susan. About how he hadn't been able to avoid noticing how she'd pined for him over the last six months. He had tried to push her away in such a manner, that she wouldn't realize that he was doing it. Knowing that in his previous condition he wouldn't have been any kind of proper husband for her, a part of him had hoped the relationship might die a natural death under the stress of being superheroes and having to save the world.

It hadn't, but now he once again possessed the ability to give Susan Storm everything she deserved. He thought back to a sock drawer in his old house that he'd have to see about emptying. "Your body, Victor, I swear it."

---

"Hey, sis." Susan turned and looked at her brother, who had reverted to his original human appearance after they'd got home. "Yes?" Johnny just kept right on smiling, despite the fact her voice made it clear she was in no mood to get sidetracked. "Well among other things, it's time for you to hear me say 'I told you so' a few dozen times."

Susan closed her arms and sighed. "What about, exactly?" Johnny's smile somehow grew broader. "Come on, you don't remember? Okay, let me give you a little reminder: 'We're not living in a comic book, Johnny.' Well, guess again, sis! Look who seems like an idiot for suggesting that Reed Richards would remain a disembodied brain for the rest of his life!"

"Okay, you maybe right about that, but I noticed that 'take control of the body of his old college rival' wasn't one of the explanations you came up with for how it would happen." Johnny shrugged like it was the most infinitesimal detail in the world. "Well I said that one way or another, Reed Richards would once again have a body, and now he has a body. It might not be 'his' body except in the sense of the phrase that he can do with it what he wants, but it is still a body. Same gender, and at worst there might be some facial scarring, but still, all the important parts still work, right? Or is that what you're going to find out tonight?"

Susan glared at him and remained silent. Johnny just shrugged, and waved , suggesting that they'd be saying good bye soon. "Now as much fun as this session of face-rubbing has been, I'm too much the gentleman to finish that analogy. Especially when I might just end up giving you ideas. So yeah, you go have fun doing things that would make me want to rip my own eyes out and stomp them into mush."

Susan walked away from her brother and sighed. This was starting to remind her of one of the final scenes in some overly dramatic movie. All that was missing now was for the ghost of her dead mother to pop up, and tell her to go carry on the family name.

She came to the door leading into Reed's laboratory, thought about knocking on it, then shook her head. Today was still Christmas, amazingly enough. It was time for her to unwrap one last present... Thinning herself down to an incredible degree she slipped under the door to Reed's laboratory, a wide flat smile on her face.

The End

AN: If you want to see what happens next go read my other story Swelling With Love, if you already haven't since I designed the end of this story to (at least theoretically) flow effortlessly into the start of that one... and if you managed to read this far you should think about leaving me a review so I know what you liked and what you didn't.


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